Sealed Away
by FriTik
Summary: Uzumaki Naruto was just another member of the Uzumaki Clan who studied Fuinjutsu as did most of his clan. When an experimental seal goes wrong on the eve of Uzushiogakure's destruction what will Naruto do in world completely unfamiliar to him?
1. Chapter 1

**What's this? A completely new story while I'm supposed to be on hiatus to better focus on my school work taking a break from my stories because I'm having trouble working on three?**

 **Meh whatever. This is kinda like how Gone Ghost got started and considering how positively that one was received…**

 **So once again I'm going into a story with no plan and no idea what the hell I'm doing because that worked really well last time.**

 **Now to my returning readers you may ask, why Naruto? Allow me to respond with, WHY NOT? Seriously I used to have bitter feelings towards this fandom but seriously I understand why it's so popular now. All the potential bloodlines and jutsus and amusing characters. I find it hard to turn away now that I've found it.**

 **So uh if the summary doesn't explain it well enough for you well…**

 **Oh just read and figure it out on your own.**

* * *

Uzumaki Naruto was a member of the Uzumaki clan and a recently graduated genin of Uzushiogakure (Village Hidden in the Whirling Tides). While he was not part of the main family his portion of the branch was quite close to the main having only branched off as his father being a younger sibling to the current clan heir.

He wasn't all that impressive to look at despite being part of the founding and perhaps most respected clan of the village. He was on the short side and his love of ramen (That kami blessed food of the gods) likely did not help his height. His inherited red hair was spiky in a fashion that while not normal among the clan was not too odd. While his blue eyes were piercing and had a constant joyous spark in them. His outfit was fairly standard save for the bright orange jacket that mortified his mother yet never failed to cause his father and uncle to burst into (very manly) giggles.

Naruto's household family was on the small side, especially compared to the entire clan. There were of course his parents but he also had two younger siblings. His younger brother Shio and younger sister Kushina.

As it was that family had become a tad smaller recently due to the fact that Kushina had been sent to Konohagakure (Village Hidden in the Leaves) for reasons that he could not get out of either of his parents nor uncle and grandfather. He had managed to learn that it had something to do with Senju-Uzumaki Mito. Unfortunately that was the extent of it.

Despite the fact that he missed his (somewhat annoying and hot-headed) sister, not that he could talk about hot-headedness, he had continued learning Fuinjutsu as was common among all members of the Uzumaki clan, main or branch. The idea of an Uzumaki who had little to no training in sealing was unheard of. Even toddlers knew the most basic seals.

Of course at age eleven Naruto was quite well versed in the art of he was not a prodigy, he was certainly above average. According to his grandfather (the current clan head) he should be an Artisan by the time he made chunin.

He had even begun experimenting on his own, which was not at all uncommon among clan members of his age group. Of course anyone under a certain age were supposed to have a Master or at least an Artisan in the room to make sure they didn't blow themselves up, but Naruto had forgone that little detail. Not because he was sure he didn't need one but mainly because he didn't want to go looking for one considering his parents and little brother were out of the house and he had no interest in going through various cousins until he found one well versed enough.

Naruto was attempting to make some changes to the basic sealing scroll, other people had made changes before him but he was trying something a tad different. He was attempting to make a smaller seal hold more. The concept was not unheard of but no one had succeeded yet and he wanted to be the first to do so.

As he made the final brushstroke on the experimental seal he paused for a moment before studying it. It certainly looked like he had done it right. If he was correct it would allow for larger items to be sealed into the scroll. He glanced around the desk he was working at and noted a medium sized box of brushes. He shrugged, might as well make sure it worked before attempting to seal anything bigger. So he placed to box on the scroll and activated the seal.

Now recall that Naruto is above average but he is not perfect. If he was then he might have noticed that part of his experiment would not allow objects under a certain weight and mass be sealed inside. The brush box was unfortunately one of such items that did not reach the minimum requirements of the seal. So it instead used the closest thing that fit the requirements. This was one unfortunate Uzumaki Naruto. In an instant the hapless Uzumaki was sucked into the seal, leaving behind an empty room.

Now under normal circumstances his parents would have noticed his disappearance and eventually figure out where he was and release him from the scroll and likely scold him for scaring the crap out of them and then ban him from anymore experimentation for awhile.

Unfortunately there was a tiny little problem that would stop this from happening. Also by tiny problem it means extremely devastating problem.

That would of course be the siege of Uzushiogakure and it's eventual destruction.

The attack was supposed to be quick as forces from Iwa and Kumo attacked under cover of darkness with thousands of shinobi from each village. Unfortunately the invading forces forgot to account for the countless trap and alarms seals that surrounded the village that both slowed the invasion force and alerted Uzushio's forces to the attack.

The siege lasted for days and with the continuous losses Naruto was listed as MIA. By the time the reinforcements managed to arrive from Konoha, the village was in rubble and most of the survivors had already fled, but not before making the invaders fight for every inch and leaving an invasion force that once numbered as thousands now barely scraping five hundred.

So it was that one little sealing scroll was left forgotten on a desk in the ruined Uzumaki Clan Compound.

* * *

 _Almost thirty years later…_

Four individuals made their way over a ridge of mountains. Two of said individuals were appeared to be rather tired and nearly falling asleep on their feet. The other two however, well…

"Come now my most youthful students! We have almost arrived at our destination!" A booming voice came fromt the lead figure dressed in green with orange legwarmers as he jogged *ahem* most youthfully.

"I look forward to whatever it is you wish to show us Gai-sensei!" The shorter figure, who could pass as a shorter clone of the leader, added in, "And if it does not properly impress me then I shall do five hundred push-ups with one hand! And if I can not do that then…"

The two other members of the group which consisted of a girl with her brown hair in two buns and a boy with pale eyes and long black hair panted as they struggled to keep up.

"I swear *huff* there is no way those two are even human." The girl panted.

"I don't understand the purpose of this detour." The boy muttered, "We've already completed the mission why not just head back to Konoha?"

This group was Genin Team 10 or Team Gai if you prefer. It consisted of jonin sensei Mighto Gai and his three genin pupils, Rock Lee, Tenten and Hyuuga Neji.

"Aha!" Gai suddenly cried as he reached the top of the ridge. "Hurry my youthful students and prepare for a short history lesson!"

"History lesson?" Tenten muttered with some confusion. History had been part of the academy curriculum but she hadn't paid much attention to it aside from studying for exams. Also Gai was not really the type of sensei she would expect a lesson like this from.

As the genin reached the top of the hill they all went wide eyed as they stared down at a mass of ruins.

What one would have been larged multi-story buildings were now crumbled to the ground on the both sides of a dazzling blue river.

"Yosh! Gai-Sensei, what is this place?" Lee asked as he stared at what would have once been a bustling hub of human interaction.

"Behold my students! Uzushiogakure, the Village Hidden in the Whirling Tides, and once Konoha's eternal ally." Gai explained. "Come! We shall go at a walking pace from here as I wish for you to truly appreciate this place as I tell you its story."

* * *

As the quad walked down ruined streets Gai began explaining the history. "As I already said this is Uzushiogakure, this village was founded by the Uzumaki clan much like Konoha was founded by the Senju, in fact the two clans were related."

"Uzumaki…" Tenten quietly said aloud, "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Why because the Shodaime Hokage's wife was a member of the clan." Gai explained, "Their marriage was to help bring our two villages together and indeed it did."

"What happened?" Neji couldn't help but ask as he stared at a ruined pillar with a rather familiar looking symbol on it.

"About thirty years ago near the end of the Second Shinobi War an invasion force consisting of thousands of Shinobi sent from Kumo and Iwa attacked in hopes of catching them off guard. However the most youthful members of the Uzumaki clan were seal masters." Neji's eyes widened at this but he said nothing. "They had many defenses around the village that alerted them to the attack and they managed to fight of the invaders for three days before they were overrun."

"Why didn't Konoha send aid Gai-Sensei?" Lee asked his role model.

"Alas we did Lee!" Gai said as manly tears began to fall. "But by the time our relief force arrived it was already too late. Our allies had been forced to flee. They did force their opponents to fight for every last inch and managed to decimate their force so that when Konoha's relief arrived they were able to finish off the unyouthful invaders."

"Gai-Sensei." Tenten spoke up, "Isn't that the symbol chunin and jonin have on their vests?" She asked pointed at one of the curious spiral symbols that had been scattered around.

"Yes my youthful student that is indeed. It is the symbol for both the village and the Uzumaki clan. In honor of our youthful allies we bear their symbol in memorial to their loss." Gai explained a look of respect in his eyes.

"Oh Gai-Sensei." Lee sobbed his own manly tears. "It is so tragic what befell our once great eternal allies! In their honor I shall do one thousand sit ups and if I can not do that then I shall-"

"We should probably set up camp." Neji cut in and Tenten sent him a gratified look. "It's beginning to get dark and we don't know what sort of wild animals could be inhabiting these ruins."

"You make a valid point Neji." Gai nodded and closed his eyes in thought. He opened them and stopped walking and took a good look around. "Perhaps their!" He pointed towards a group of buildings in relatively good shape.

His genin voiced their agreements and the group set off towards the buildings. Upon arriving they found that the largest building was in what could be called impossible pristine condition. Lee and Tenten made to enter while Neji surveyed the surrounding buildings, but they were quickly stopped by their sensei's hands on their shoulders.

"I would not enter their my most youthful students." Gai told them and took a good look at the building. Before Tenten and Lee could voice their confusion Gai bent over and picked up a piece of rubble. He examined it briefly before throwing it at the building. But before it reached the structure a glowing blue barrier shimmered into existence and the rock bounced off.

"Just as I thought." Gai noted as all three of his students stared in surprise. "This is likely the Uzumaki clan compound. It appears they put up seals around the more important structures to keep intruders out."

"It is no matter!" He suddenly perked up. "The other buildings are in reasonably good condition and we can bunk inside one of them!" He trotted off towards a smaller and slightly run down building that was still in considerably good shape.

* * *

 _That night…_

Tenten groaned into her pillow as she tried to ignore her sensei and more "youthful" teammates' snoring. Eventually she sighed in defeat and tossed her covers off. As she stood up she noticed that Neji's mat was also empty. She frowned but figured her somewhat more normal teammate was having similar sleeping problems.

She wandered through the old run down house and looked around. Pictures and other various mementos lined the walls. One picture caught her eye. She walked over and picked it up brushing off a few layers of dust. A smiling family of five posed for the camera which was obviously an older model from the coloring of the picture.

Everyone in the image had red hair, the father had hair that hung down to the base of his neck and the mother had her hair done up in bun in the back. The three children stood grinning the oldest had spiky hair that stood out a bit despite it sharing the proper color. He stood in the middle with his arms around his younger siblings shoulders. The younger boy resembled his father without the beard while the little girl had a big grin on her face and flashed the camera a victory sign.

She stared at the picture of the happy family that was probably long dead and felt a sense of sorrow well up inside her. She closed her eyes and sighed putting the picture down. Before she could do anything else she heard something fall on the ground in another room. She quickly slipped a kunai of her pajama sleeve. It was completely normal to have a deadly weapon in the sleeve of one's bed clothes right?

Tenten silently walked towards the room where she heard the thump. She stood just outside the door for a moment listening before leaping into the room brandishing the kunai.

She immediately relaxed when she saw it was Neji who had also tensed at her unexpected entry but had yet to relax.

"What are you doing here?' He hissed.

"Looking around." She whispered, "Couldn't sleep." She narrowed her eyes realizing he had yet to relax his stance. "What are _you_ doing here."

He said nothing but turned back to the desk he was investigating before finally saying "Nothing just looking into a… personal matter. It's not important."

Tenten knew there was something he wasn't telling her a walked up to the desk coming to a standstill beside Neji. She looked over the desk and took note of the various scrolls and brushes on it. Apparently this was the workspace of one of the clan's aspiring seal masters.

"You interested in Fuinjutsu?" She asked Neji recalling the name for the art of sealing. "I'm not sure there are many people in Konoha who are interested in it."

"I could name a few." Neji muttered with what sounded like bitterness which caused Tenten to raise an eyebrow with curiosity and concern.

Her gaze traveled back to the desk and she noticed the most prominent item being a scroll with a basic seal on it. "I wonder if there's anything in there." She muttered almost to herself.

"Who knows." Neji shrugged sounding uninterested.

"Well it's not very big maybe there are a few kunai and shuriken inside. Could we open it up?" She asked her teammate.

"I don't see why not." Neji agreed seeing the benefit of having some fresh supplies after their latest mission where they had used up some of their throwing weapons fighting bandits. Without anymore debate Neji activated the seal.

Whatever they had been expecting to pop out of the scroll they were most certainly not expecting a spiky haired redhead in a horrendous orange jacket to appear in midair with a puff of smoke and land on top of Neji.

* * *

 **And that's a wrap!**

 **Love it? Hate it? Got ideas for me on where to take this? Let me know in the reviews and I'll be seeing you next time the mood strikes me!**

 **Until next we meet! Stay youthful my friends!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


	2. Chapter 2

**What's this? Chapter two of our riveting tale already? Well that's mainly because right now I have inspiration for this story. I kinda wanna get what I can done before I lose my drive for it.**

 **Now quite frankly I'm not quite sure where I wanna take this. I'm not sure if Kushina should still be alive and well as the kyuubi's jinchuuriki or if she and Minato are dead and their kid is the jinchuuriki that Naruto will get really protective of for obvious reasons.**

 **Eh I'll figure it out next chapter when they get back to Konoha.**

 **But for now we get a little fight scene that displays the combatants youthful skills!**

 **I'm not sorry.**

* * *

 _Naruto's POV_

Naruto had never felt so relieved to physically be in his house. That was the last time he ever messed around with seals without someone more proficient in the room. He could hardly begin to describe the weird discomfort of being trapped in a seal. It was as though someone had removed everything about him and left him floating with none of his senses.

So being able to feel his body again was nice. He couldn't see anything though but that might've been because it was night. It had been getting late when he was working on the seal. But he had just been released, likely by his parents, so why were the lights out?

It took Naruto a moment to realize he was sitting on top of something that was definitely not the floor. What gave it away? Maybe the fact it was warm, lumpy and struggling. He saw a form moving in the darkness making what looked like an attack towards him. His training kicked in and he rolled off whatever it was he had landed on and slid himself into a fighting stance.

As his eyes began to adjust he was able to make out the silhouette of his potential opponent. He also noticed something else moving where he had just been. Oops guess he had landed on someone when he was unsealed. But right now he had a slight larger concern like who were these two and what were they doing in his house? Where were his parents and Shio?

"Who are you and what are you doing in here? This is my house, dattebayo!" He demanded, activating a seal on his right wrist, unsealing a trio of kunai he had stored there.

"What?" The standing figure stepped back in confusion, from the sound of her voice it was probably a girl, "This house has been abandoned for years! How could you live here?" As she spoke her companion started to get to his feet.

Naruto said nothing but narrowed his eyes in confusion. Were they trying to psyche him out or something? Who breaks into someone's house and when questioned uses such a blatant and obvious lie? So instead of talking he chucked two of his kunai at the pair. He was aiming for non-vital areas as he still wanted to know what the heck they were doing here in his bedroom in the middle of the night. Well he assumed it was the middle of the night considering everything was dark save for a shaft of moonlight shining through the window.

The intruding pair both dodged their respective kunai and got into fighting stances of their own. Naruto didn't recognize either of their forms but they were definitely trained fighters instead of just your average thieves in the night.

Without another moment to spare he rushed at the closest figure which just happened to be the one he had been sitting on a few minutes prior. He swung at his opponent's eyes hoping to blind him further. The boy dodged the strike but Naruto just slammed his free hand on the ground and kicked his leg back catching the shadowed figure in the chin with the ball of his foot sending him crashing backwards into the wall of his bedroom. He send swung his legs back allowing him to flip onto his feet in a crouch position.

Naruto felt a twinge of satisfaction but before he could properly enjoy it the third person in the room send a volley of shuriken towards him. He rolled out of the way of the attack allowing them to embed themselves into the floor and wall where he had just been. He threw the last kunai in his hand at the girl before rushing forward pulling back his fist. There was a clang of metal as the girl maneuvered her own kunai knocking his off course and sending it to the floor.

Unfortunately for her Naruto was on top of her the next instant swinging his fist at her stomach in an attempt to knock the wind out of her. Even the best fighter on the planet couldn't fight if they couldn't breath. Before his fist could make contact she tilted her torso back and to the left and brought her arm up to block his punch almost causing Naruto to completely lose his momentum. She then swung her right hand around slashing with a kunai. It almost got him too but he dropped down to the ground and swung his legs around knocking her feet out from under her knocking her the floor.

Before she could pull herself back up Naruto grabbed up the kunai she had knocked away put his foot on her stomach to help hold her down and leaned forward brandishing the kunai both so he could appear more intimidating and so he could get a better look at the home invader.

"I'll ask again! Who the heck are you?" He growled trying his best to sound intimidating. Intimidation had certainly never been his strong suit partially because his height made it hard to appear as such and he didn't enjoy acting that way but he wanted answers and he wanted them now. He saw the girl grit her teeth but before she could do anything else he heard a sound behind him and turned just in time to have the girl's companion strike him in the chest with his palm sending him toppling over and onto the floor.

"I believe it us who will be asking the questions here." The boy told Naruto getting into his fighting stance again as the girl regained her breath and stood back up next to him.

"Fat chance." He childishly stuck his tongue out at the boy and pushed himself back to his feet. That guy sure hit hard, he definitely had some form of training from some shinobi. As his eyes had finished adjusting to the light by now he was able to make out some of the pairs features. They both appeared to be in some sort of sleep wear for some reason. The boy had long black hair and some sort of hitai wrapped around his forehead. Maybe they were shinobi from a rival village? He hadn't thought the war would come to Uzushio especially now it was starting to come to a close. But besides that he could make out that he had very pale eyes, almost as if he were blind. That would certainly give him an advantage in the dark.

"Very well then I shall detain you and then force the answers from you." His opponent said with indifference. "Byakugan." He stated calmly and veins seem to bulge out of his his head. His companion slid out another trio of shuriken.

Naruto's barely had time to think 'oh, sooo not good he has a doujutsu' before the shuriken came hurdling towards him and the boy with the doujutsu charged with an open palmed strike ready. Naruto leaped back and reluctantly activated the seal on his left wrist releasing a kunai with an exploding tag attached. 'I really hope Kaa-san doesn't mind too much given the situation' he thought before hurtling the exploding projectile forward. The doujutsu user ducked under the weapon and the girl slid to the side. But his male opponent seemed to have realized what it was that he had thrown towards them.

"Tenten get down!" He shouted to the girl as Naruto took advantage of their temporary distraction to leap out his open door and into the hallway just as his room exploded behind him.

As he ran down the hallway he could barely keep his bare feet from skidding across the layer of dust that covered the floor. He barely noticed the worn look everything from the walls to the furniture had. What the heck was going on? Who were those two? What had happened to his house?

Barely had these thoughts crossed his mind before a voice shouted "DYNAMIC ENTRANCE!", something slammed into his head, and his vision went black.

* * *

 _Tenten's POV a few moments earlier…_

As soon as Neji had shouted his warning Tenten got to the ground and tucked into a ball keeping her head down as the wall behind her exploded and heat seared her back. She felt rubble rain down on her and she tentatively look up and turned around to see a gaping hole where the wall had been moments before.

She shared a glance with Neji who had also gone for the duck and cover approach rather than going after the red headed boy. This had to be one of the strangest nights of their lives. Before she could say anything they heard their Sensei's voice cry out his patented "DYNAMIC ENTRANCE!" and something thump on the floor. They pulled themselves up and rushed to where they heard the noise.

They found Gai standing there in striped pajamas looking down at the boy they had just encountered. "Ah my most youthful students!" Gai said looking up from the boy and towards the pair of them. They noticed Lee standing in similar pajamas standing at attention behind Gai. "Perhaps you could explain who this youth is and what the pair of you are doing awake at this hour when you should resting for our return to Konoha!"

"We were having difficulties sleeping." Neji said without giving Tenten a moment to speak, "We decided to look around the residence and we found a small sealing scroll. When I attempted to activate it this boy appeared. He then accused us of breaking into his home and attacked us."

"Hmm a most interesting development." Gai stated returning his gaze to the boy on the floor. "As unyouthful as it may be it would probably be in our best interests to detain him for the time being at least until we get can get some answers out of him." Gai tilted his head and squinted a bit. "But he does appear to be a member of the Uzumaki clan." Gai added almost as an afterthought.

"How can you tell Gai-sensei?" Lee asked with enthusiasm.

"It is his youthful red locks, Lee! That red hair is perhaps the most defining trait of the Uzumaki clan next to having superb skills in Fuinjutsu." Gai explained to his favored (not that he would admit it aloud) student.

"He did use an explosive tag on us and his weapons seemed to just poof into his hands." Tenten noted as she sat the unconscious boy up and used some ninja wire to tie his hand together behind his back. She pulled up his sleeve a bit and her eyes widened when she saw what looked like a seal tattooed onto the boy's wrist. "He has a seal on his wrist." She checked his other arm and amended her observation, "He has seals on both wrists."

"What a clever tactic." Gai nodded and put a hand on his chin, "it seems that there was no exaggeration in the Uzumaki clan's skill with seals. To put them on their own flesh to make it more convenient requires much determination and skill." Tenten noticed Neji twitch and clench his fist in anger. 'Wonder what he's angry about.' she wondered silently as she looked at her teammate.

She leaned their new captive against the wall and took a proper look at him. Apart from that horrible orange jacket he had on he was also wearing a navy blue shirt with the Uzumaki clan symbol on it. He had on a pair of black pants with numerous pockets. He didn't have shoes on which was unsurprising considering he seemed to think he lived here and wouldn't wear shoes around the house. But she notice one final feature which was a hitai wrapped around his forehead hold up his spiky bangs. Instead of the Konoha symbol she was used to seeing on hitai-ate this one had the swirl symbol she had come to relate to this village.

"Yosh!" Gai suddenly cut in freeing her from her thoughts. "It is late and our youthful companion is unconscious. We shall investigate further tomorrow when this lad is awake. Let us all get some rest!" He looked at Neji and Tenten when he said this and the pair of them nodded in agreement. They were feeling a good deal more worn out after their fight with the boy. Yet as they lay down to attempt to get to sleep again with the mystery boy propped up in the corner Tenten couldn't help but wonder what kind of mess they had just stumbled upon.

* * *

 _The next morning, Naruto POV…_

Naruto groaned as he sat up. His head felt like it had just been used as a battering ram. Or perhaps had been the victim of battering ram. Maybe both which was quite possible with his luck. He opened his eyes only to immediately start squinting in the unexpected light. Was it morning already? Maybe his parents had heard the bang and dealt with the intruders already. Speaking of which how had he been knocked unconscious again? The last thing he remembered was…

"Yosh! Our mysterious companion is awake!"

That voice. That painfully loud way too enthusiastic voice. Wait why was he talking about himself?

Naruto managed to open his eyes again now that they had adjusted to the light and was finally able to get a good look at the people who broke into his house as well as their companions. Two of them were dressed in some sort of green jumpsuits and had incredibly bushy eyebrows. He didn't remember seeing these two last night but from the sound of the voice it was probably the bigger one that had knocked him out last night. The other two he recognized as his initial opponents last night.

Now that he had a better look at them and they weren't in sleepwear he could see the symbol on their hitai-ate. It looked familiar…

"Mind explaining who you are now." The boy from the previous night didn't so much ask as order him.

"I don't have to tell you anything girly, you're in my house, dattebayo." He glared at him.

The boy looked a bit startled at being called girly while the actual girl giggled at his misfortune. The man in green with the bushy eyebrows coughed getting Naruto's attention. "We apologize young Uzumaki, we believed that this house was abandoned."

"Abandoned? What the heck are you talking about? Where are my parents and Shio?" he glared at him and tried get up only to fall flat on his face. He tilted his head and tried to look behind him and saw that his hands were bound.

"I apologize for our unyouthful treatment of you but we did not wish for you to suddenly attack us for no reason again." The big man explained.

"You broke into my house I think I have a good reason dattebayo." Naruto commented.

"I'm sorry but we really did think it was abandoned." The girl said kindly, "Do you think you could tell us your name?" She asked.

As he looked at the girl trying to come up with a good reason why he shouldn't tell her his name his gaze flickered to her hitai-ate and he realized why the symbol looked familiar. "Konoha…" he said finally, "You're from Konoha!"

The group nodded confirming his suspicions. The girl spoke up, "We're a team from Konoha, I'm Tenten. That's Hyuuga Neji." She pointed at the pale eyed boy. "That's Rock Lee." Sho nodded towards Lee. "And this is our Sensei, Maito Gai."

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto." He introduced himself from the floor. "Well maybe you guys aren't enemies but that still doesn't explain what you're doing in my house! Why the heck did you think it was abandoned?" He asked feeling a bit calmer but still confused.

"Maybe because Uzushio was destroyed almost thirty years ago with the survivors scattered to the wind." Neji said bluntly much to the ire of some of his companions.

"NEJI." Tenten cried, "You can't just drop a bomb like that!"

Naruto stared blankly before laughing. "I should have known, okay Shio you're very funny otouto but the jokes over. I'm not sure how you learned genjutsu but you can stop now and untie me."

When nothing happen and some of the group of Konoha nins just looked at him with something like pity on their faces he started getting frustrated. "I said knock it off! It isn't funny anymore!"

"This is not a joke my young friend." Gai spoke up, "It is the most unyouthful truth. Almost thirty years ago now Uzushio was attacked and destroyed in a three day siege, by the time Konoha's relief arrived it was already too late to save even though the invaders were defeated. It appears that you remained safely hidden inside that seal throughout the attack"

"No." Naruto shook his head, "I don't believe you, this is just some sort of sick joke, AND IT ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE!" He shouted out the last part hoping that someone anyone would listen and make it stop.

Gai had a regretful look on his face and a placed a hand Naruto's shoulder, "I truly am sorry." He said sounding uncharacteristically serious from what Naruto knew of the man, which wasn't much to be fair. "If you still don't believe perhaps it would be easier to simply show you."

"Show me what?" Naruto asked not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Tenten cut his bonds." Gai directed his student. When she had done so Gai helped Naruto to his feet and led him through his house. Now that it was light Naruto could see the wear and tear of the house and the thick layers of dust were clearer in the morning sunlight. The ceiling and walls had weblike cracks on them and some of the wood from both furniture and the house's infrastructure looked rotten.

When they reached the door Naruto was able to look out at the rest of the clan compound. It was in ruins. Most of the buildings were collapsing or rotting away and those that were not looked as if they hadn't been used in years. Instead of the rest of the village in the background as he was used to seeing when he stepped out of his house he saw only ruins, large multi-story buildings were now huge chunks of rubble.

Naruto fell to his knees as he stared out and the truth hit him. This was no sick prank or a genjutsu, this was real. His parents, brother, uncle and grandfather, all his cousins, his former classmates at the academy, his sensei and teammates. They were all gone. They were all probably dead by now. Kushina had likely grown up alone in Konoha if she was even still alive.

He couldn't stop his tears from falling as Gai put a comforting hand on his back.

* * *

 **That was saddening to write but I needed to get that part out of the way so we can move on.**

 **Now a bit of a character bio for Naruto in this story.**

 **Name: Uzumaki Naruto**

 **Clan: Uzumaki**

 **Appearance: He looks basically like the canon Naruto with the primary difference being the red hair and lack of whisker marks on his cheeks. Apart from that and a slightly different wardrobe he looks like he did at the beginning of Naruto, maybe a bit shorter.**

 **Affinities: Water Affinity, Wind Affinity**

 **Skills: Somewhat advanced in Fuinjutsu, reasonably skilled at both Ninjutsu and Taijutsu, okay at Genjutsu.**

 **Personality: Similar to canon but he is somewhat more educated than his canon counterpart due to actively being part of a clan.**

 **So yeah that's about it there.**

 **But honestly I have no idea whether I should keep Kushina alive or just have Naruto meet her child who will likely be named either Naruko or Menma depending on what gender I decide. Feel free to voice your opinions in the reviews. I like getting feedback.**

 **Anyway until next time! See ya!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


	3. Chapter 3

**What's this? Yet another chapter beginning with the question "What's this?" A glorious new chapter of this story should fix that!**

 **But yeah on a more serious note note I've got a generally idea of where to take this now. Both Kushina and Minato** _ **will**_ **be dead. While saddening it is necessary for the story and well they're dead in canon anyway.**

 **As for the nine tails it will be sealed inside one Uzumaki Naruko whom Naruto will kinda see as a little sister for a number of fairly obvious reasons. Does this mean Naruto is going to be weak? HECK NO. He's just going to rely on alternative means of succeeding instead of a giant fox in his stomach. Which is still weird to think about might I add.**

 **Also as to pairings… I got no fucking clue. I'll figure it out later. They're freaking kids right now. Note that I don't plan to have some sort of creepy incest thing happening. I mean if it's distant relations like 3rd cousins twice removed, maybe. People seem to forget that a lot of the clan born kids in Naruto are a result of incestous relationships but I'm not gonna be having pairings with siblings or anything creepy like that.**

 **Anyway chapter time!**

* * *

 _Naruto POV..._

It took Naruto a little while to calm down, once he did he just tried to keep his thoughts away from the fact everyone he knew and cared for was probably dead and even if they weren't they had long since moved on with their lives. Oh crap he just thought about it.

When the tears had stop falling Gai had given him a form of pep talk. "As depressing and saddening as it is my youthful friend, you can not allow it to extinguish your flames! Your loved ones may be gone but they would not want you to wallow in your grief and waste your new chance at life mourning them. Let your Flames of Youth burn brightly and drive you on into the future!"

As strange as it was that little speech actually did make him feel a bit better, but it didn't take away the hurt.

So instead of letting himself think about what he had lost he started thinking about what he could save. As Team Gai went about picking up their camp, Naruto went through his house seeing what belongings he could salvage. Unfortunately most items had begun to fall into various states of decay, either the metal was rusted or the organic material had rotted. He did manage to salvage a few of his own clothes after a quick dusting but he should probably replace them soon. He also located a pair of boots in the bottom of his closet that weren't in horrible shape but they were far from mint condition. They were one his older pairs so they were a bit small and worn but at least they were still usable.

Around that time he realized how hungry he was but it seemed he wasn't the only one who was hungry as the Konoha-nin had settled down for a nutritious breakfast of rations, yum! They offered to share with him noticing his occasional hungry glances towards the group. It wasn't ramen but it was food nonetheless.

"Naruto, I was curious about the seals on your wrists?" Tenten asked him as the group sat there.

"Huh?" Naruto paused in his chewing and swallowed his "delicious and nutritious" mouthful of rations. "How'd you know about those?"

"I saw them when I was umm… tying your hands together." She said sounding a bit embarrassed about it.

"Oh." Naruto shrugged, with everything else going on he had forgotten about the position he had found himself in when he woke up this morning. "They're just basic storage seals nothing special about them, I got bigger ones on my upper arms and shoulders." He noted nonchalantly not seeing the big deal.

He then saw the surprised looks he was getting. "Is it that uncommon?" He ask feeling a bit confused, just about everyone in the clan had storage seals or body enhancing seals tattooed onto their skin, normally under their clothes. Some people used paper seals but most found it more convenient to just use tattoos. "I got the ones on my wrists when I first started studying, the others came when I was in the academy."

"It is certainly a most youthful idea." Gai conceded nodding in approval, "But I don't believe I have encountered anyone whose flames burn strong enough to encourage such a practice. But I believe most people would rather rely on their own youthful determination with no outside aid."

Naruto stared blankly for a moment before shrugging and going back to the rations he had been given, it was all he could do to keep from inhaling them.

"Naruto." Hearing his name caused said Uzumaki looked up and was surprised it was Neji who had spoken, "What is it you plan to do now? I doubt that you will be staying here."

Naruto blinked and sat there stumped for a moment. What was he going to do now? He had been so focused on salvaging what he could he hadn't thought about what he would do next. Where was he even supposed to go? He had always lived in Uzushio and that wasn't much of an option anymore. Well theoretically he could stay, he would just be alone…

"Yosh!" Lee suddenly cried with enthusiasm startling Naruto from his thoughts, "You can come with us back to Konoha!"

"What a most youthful idea Lee!" Gai declared before Naruto could respond to such a sudden invitation. "He is perhaps the last member of our village's eternal ally! It is our youthful duty to provide aid and extend a helping hand."

Naruto glanced at the group reading their reactions to Lee's invitation and Gai's approval of it. Neji had an air of indifference but behind that he seemed to be deep in thought, Tenten offered a kind smile, while Lee and Gai still seemed to be enthusiastic about the prospect.

He didn't respond immediately as much as he wanted to. He had been told in the past (way in the past now) that he had a habit of rushing into things. But to be quite honest he didn't have any other options at this point. Also if Kushina was still alive she would probably be in Konoha, but would she even remember him? It had been thirty years since she had last seen him apparently and she had been six years old at the time.

Then again what other choice did he have?

"Yeah." Naruto agreed. "I'll come with you guys."

* * *

 _Fifteen minutes later…_

After they had finish up the meal Naruto had packed the extra clothes he had salvaged into a bag. He normally would have just used one of his storage seals but he had a feeling those would be filled up very soon.

After his initial breakdown when he first stepped outside he had not wanted to take another look. But he eventually realized he would have to walk through the ruins to leave anyway to he might as well get acclimatized to it. Upon leaving his house again and taking a better look around he had discovered what could potentially be seen as a miracle, the main building of the Uzumaki Compound appeared to be undamaged.

After he was over the immediate surprise of seeing any part of his home in one piece, he had realized the barrier seals must still be in place. Any given member of the clan knew about the barrier barrier had been in place since the compound was constructed and were so advanced that some of their best seal masters had trouble deciphering them in an effort to replicate for other structures, even then the recreations were nothing compared to the original.

The barrier as complex as it was did have a few bipasses, one was a seal known to the clan elders and clan head that would allow exalted guests to enter into the building as long as they had the seal on them. The other way in was good bit simpler, that was to be of Uzumaki heritage.

Fortunately Naruto met the second requirement and figured as potentially the last Uzushio shinobi of Uzumaki blood still alive (even if he was a genin) he should probably take his inheritance (if there was any left in there) with him. It was entirely possible that any scrolls containing techniques and seals that were privy only to the clan elite had been removed by any survivors before they fled. But it was more likely that any clan members who survived would have realized the invaders had no way to break down the barrier and take what with inside and would instead be content to leave them safely locked away.

So after a quick explanation to Gai who was quite pleased that his flames of youth burned bright enough to encourage such a venture, he entered into the silent clan hall.

Honestly it looked like it hadn't aged a day since he had last stood inside. Though to be fair Naruto actually had not aged a day since then. But that was besides the point. If it were not for the fact that he had just looked out over the ruins of his village, he would be hard pressed to believe that it had been destroyed thirty years prior.

Oh that was weird thought. If he had been sealed away in that dumb scroll for almost thirty years he would be going on forty.

Naruto walked through the hall looking through empty rooms as he made his way to the clan vault. Honestly he had no idea if he would even be able to get inside but he had to at least try.

The vault itself did not appear all that impressive though he had to guess that was the point. It was just a stone door on the wall in the back of the building. Unfortunately it was nearly impossible to get open. That is unless you knew the specific handsigns to deactivate the seals that kept it locked and the seals that would trap whoever tried to open it.

Naruto concentrated a bit of his chakra into the door, not enough to activate anything just enough to let him see the seals. Of course he had to be careful, chakra manipulation wasn't his strong suit. As soon as they appeared he had to fight to keep his chakra under control, he had never seen a seal array this complex, except perhaps the barrier but he had never had the chance to take a good look at that.

It was just overwhelming. He had never seen so many seals interwoven together in such a fashion. If they all managed to function properly he'd dye his hair yellow, wear a completely orange outfit (he wasn't that stupid, orange was just his favorite color), and run around shouting about becoming, oh Hokage or something.

Naruto had always learned better by watching and doing rather than reading but he couldn't risk trying out ideas until something worked as there would be no one to help him out of a trap. So he was forced to sit down carefully sending a tiny amount of chakra into the stone slab while looking over each individual seal trying to find a Bakka Dua.

A Bakka Dua was something that many seal masters used in creating complex arrays. It was essentially a way to get in if they made a mistake somewhere along the line or if they were in a rush and needed to readjust something quickly. He was sure even the barrier had one somewhere but no one had ever bothered looking for one.

About half an hour into studying the door he hadn't made any progress. He felt a bit bad about making Team Gai wait around for him but this was important and they could always leave him if they really wanted to. Although he hoped they wouldn't he didn't want to be alone.

As he went through the next row of seals he numbly listed them off in his head. ' _Lock number twenty one, storage seal likely filled with something explosive, seal that will protect the door from said explosion, the kanji for ramen, another tra- wait what?'_

He went back and there it was. Ramen. Just the word ramen, glowing like the rest of the seals on the door.

No way.

He shut down his chakra flow to the matrix and just focused on that spot. It still glowed even after all the others had dimmed and faded away. That meant somehow it was a seal, maybe it was disguised somehow?

Without a second thought Naruto poured his chakra into it.

Then before anything else happened he took the brief moment to appreciate how completely idiotic that had been. For all he knew it could have been another trap disguised to throw people off, so much for thinking before he acts.

Much to his relief the kanji simply began to morph into a simple seal for opening. It wasn't even connected to the rest of the array but simply to the door itself, therefore it bypassed all the other security measures, simple yet genius.

The stone slab swung open with a grinding sound allowing Naruto to peer into the darkness beyond. He had never actually seen inside the vault before so he was a tad bit nervous about that but he didn't have anything to lose so… He took a deep breath and walked across the threshold.

After walking through the darkness and down a spiral staircase (which is a tad cliche) using the wall to guide him until he eventually saw a light ahead of him. He started moving faster down the stairs until he reached the light.

He found himself in a large circular chamber with shelves upon shelves of scrolls, tablets and various other trinkets. A large scroll sat in the middle of the room upon a pedestal and Naruto could not identify the source of the light, it seemed to come from all around.

After staring for a moment at his clans nearly forgotten legacy, Naruto activated the seals on his upper arms causing a few rolls of parchment as well as brushes and the special paint used for drawing seals to poof into the air. He quickly grabbed them before they could fall and sat down before proceeding to unravel the scrolls and grabbing the brush and paint. He was going to need a lot of storage seals for this.

* * *

 _Some time later…_

A good while later Naruto sighed as he sealed the last storage scroll into the storage seal tattooed on his shoulder. He hadn't bothered attempting to catalog everything he sealed away, he had kept Team Gai waiting long enough, besides he would probably have plenty of time later.

He stood up and looked at the now empty shelves making sure he hadn't missed anything. After ensuring that he had not forgotten any of those items he turned his attention towards the central dais and the scroll sitting there. He honestly had no idea what the scroll was but from where it was sitting it was probably important.

Naruto tentatively walked over to the last item in the room and took a moment to stare at it, the Uzumaki clan symbol stared back at him. After looking up to ensure there was no giant boulder waiting to fall and crush him like an insignificant bug or an adventurer with the name of a state he grabbed the scroll.

When nothing happened he sighed he really was just being paranoid. Holding the scroll close Naruto started towards the exit, but before he left he turned back. He would come back here someday, he wasn't sure when or under what circumstances but he would come back. He turned away and and walked up the stairs, not noticing the room dimming into blackness behind him.

He didn't look back a second time.

* * *

 **And that's it for this time!**

 **Next time we finally get to Konoha! Took a little while didn't it?**

 **Anyway Reviews! Woo!**

 **Threws : I'm glad you like it and I will be killing Kushina, or technically I already did. Whatever, but yeah I'll be using Naruko because Menma is essentially Naruto with a different name. As to the pairing as mentioned at the top haven't put much thought into it yet.**

 **SunlitSky21: Here's the a new chapter and I'm glad you like it so far! Also I agree it would be interesting to see Kushina and Naruto meet I also agree that it would be better for the story to use Naruko. But her I think the idea has merit, maybe I'll make a oneshot of it or something.**

 **Mimosa : So many questions I haven't even figured out some of the answers yet! I hope you enjoy!**

 **Ejammer: I hope you will continue to be interested.**

 **Guest: He got stuff from the compound, it'll take him awhile to get through it all though.**

 **CW: I DO WHAT I WANT! But in all honesty I'm figuring this out as I go along, that seems to be how I write best.**

 **Shadow-Shinobi666 : Glad you think so!**

 **Silmr3: I don't review too often myself but I'm glad you took the time! I hope you enjoy.**

 **Well until next we meet! Oh and if you have ideas for pairings let me know, I won't be doing a harem though, honestly I get why some people like the idea but the Naruto fandom has got to have the biggest collection of harem shippers I've ever seen. Ah well, just some food for thought, see ya around!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


	4. Chapter 4

**What's this? Yet another chapter of our glorious tale? How youthful of me!**

 **Yeah I'm going to continue the youth stuff throughout this story and no one can stop me.**

 **Anyway I become more excited every time I think about writing this. There are just so many possibilities. Seals alone amount to basically infinitesimal possibilities.**

 **Moving right along thank you to all who voiced their opinions on the options I gave out I have made the final decision though, you may think of yourselves as advisers to my all encompassing monarchy!**

 **Good for you!**

 **Ahem… Well I decided on the following:**

 **Minato is dead.**

 **Kushina is dead.**

 **Naruko (or whatever I call her) is a thing.**

 **Yeah, yeah I know this is not what some of you wanted and I am kinda going with my original plan but I had a lot of things to go over with this and having some other people's opinions helped.**

 **I really did want to have at least Kushina alive because well she would have been a lot of fun to write.**

 **But alas it kinda ruins what I'm going for with this.**

 **Also I don't want to call Naruko... well... Naruko because Naruto is in this and the name similarities could get a bit confusing. I'm thinking something like Natsumi or something.**

 **Anyway we'll get to that next chapter but for this chapter we're actually going to Konoha in the first place. Oh and for those who think Naruto is going to be fine with the loss of his family and village guess again.**

* * *

The road to Konoha was a long and trying one lit brightly by the fires of youth! Or at least that's what Gai would have his students and guest believe.

Honestly it was perhaps the worst trip Naruto had ever been on. There was a sense of finality of leaving his ruined home and everything he had ever known behind. True everyone was dead so there was no one to miss him, but that kind of just made the whole situation worse. He was potentially the last survivor of his entire village, more likely now considering it had been thirty years since its fall apparently.

That part was the hardest actually. Everyone had not just recently died, they had been dead and forgotten for the past thirty years. Even if there were other survivors of the invasion, they had moved on a long time ago and here he was with the fresh sting of lost family and friends. Naruto should be about forty years old at this point. Instead he was an eleven year old genin from a dead village. Not to mention how different the world probably was by this point. The Second War had apparently ended not long after the destruction of his home and then there had been a Third War that had been fought and won since then. And now he found himself in the company of perhaps the strangest jonin he had ever met along with his equally curious students, albeit for different reasons.

Stranger in a strange place indeed.

So here he was jogging down the path with literally his entire heritage on his back and beside a pair of green training monsters and a duo of out of breath genin.

"Is he always like this?" Naruto asked as he followed along at a steady pace feeling slightly winded but other than that just fine.

"No... he actually seems to be having a slow day." Neji commented notably more out of it than he was.

"Huh…" Naruto stared at the muscular man as he and Lee encouraged each other in a most youthful manner.

"How?!" Tenten managed to gasp out, "How the hell are you keeping up without collapsing? We've been at this for three months and we're just getting used to this kind of thing."

"Uzumaki are known for having large amounts of stamina." Naruto mentioned shrugging, he had never really paid that much attention to it, everyone in Uzushio was used to it, but he supposed it would be a bit odd to people who had likely never met an Uzumaki in their lives before.

"That must *huff* be nice." Tenten tried to growl, while Neji chose to remain silent.

About a half hour passed in silence for the most part, only broken by the occasional cheering of either Gai or Lee urging the youthful group on and the huffing and puffing of the rest of the crew, even Naruto was starting to feel tired.

When the silence began to become deafening naruto decided to try starting a conversation. "So what's Konoha like?"

"It is a most youthful village!" Lee announced proudly.

Naruto blinked blankly at him.

"He means it's nice." Neji translated neutrally.

"Five out of ten." Tenten commented earning her looks from everyone else. "What? It's still my home and I would defend it with my life, but I didn't have the best experience growing up and I know others had it worse."

"What do you mean Tenten? Our gang was most youthful!" Lee added his bit deepening everyone else's confusion.

"Lee I don't think three orphans scrounging for food count as a gang." Tenten voiced her thoughts on the matter before turning back to the others. "Sorry about that, but I guess Konoha would be like other Hidden Villages, but I'm not sure what they were like in your time."

"Nice on the surface but full of corruption?" Naruto offered thinking of what his father had taught him about "Political no Jutsu." Honestly being a ninja certainly had its perks but there was a lot of crap you had to put up with beyond learning how to fight and how to deal with the emotional stress the job put on you.

"That is surprisingly accurate." Neji noted.

"What do you mean surprisingly?" Naruto narrowed his eyes.

"Nothing."

* * *

 _Konoha's Gates..._

"Why are there four giants head on the side of the mountain?" Naruto asked with a notable amount of confusion. Said heads also looked kind of dull and bland, maybe someone should try painting them…

The group had arrived at Konoha roughly five minutes earlier and Gai was currently dealing with the quote, "most unyouthful paperwork" end quote. Said paperwork had increased in size when one of the chunin on guard had noticed Naruto and after a bit of explaining had handed Gai a bunch of forms to fill out concerning bringing a potential new member of the ninja program to Konoha.

Why the heck was paperwork so important anyway? Naruto was sure there was a reason that probably had to do with legal practice but beyond that had no clue.

"That's the Hokage monument, every Hokage the village has had so far." Tenten explained.

"Wait, you make giant versions of your leaders faces? Why?!" Naruto asked stunned.

"Ya know I never really thought about it… It's just kind of always been there." Tenten admitted. "I guess it's a show of respect."

"Well it is pretty cool looking." Naruto conceded before taking a better look at the faces. "So the fourth one is the Hokage right now?"

"No, actually the Sandaime Hokage is currently in office." Neji entered into the discussion.

"What happened to the Yondaime?" Naruto asked.

"He died defeating the Kyuubi about eleven years ago when it attacked the village, the Sandaime was still alive so he just took back the position instead of finding a new Hokage." Neji elaborated

"Oh." Naruto said not exactly expecting a tailed beast to be involved, "So who's the poor kid he sealed it into?" Several feet away Gai stiffened in the midst of sorting through the paperwork, fortunately none of the genin noticed this action as Naruto was waiting for an answer and the Konoha born genin work looking at him with no small amount of confusion.

"What are you talking about? The Fourth killed it!"

"You can't kill a Bijuu and they get sealed into young kids to make jinchuuriki most of the time." Naruto explained. "It's easier than trying to stick it in an inanimate container because those don't have a chakra system for the beasts chakra to leak into so it doesn't just keep building up." He had learned about jinchuuriki when he first started looking into putting seals on humans, it kind of sucked but as long as the seal was done right the jinchuuriki shouldn't have too many problems with it. Right?

"Yosh my youthful students and companion!" Gai suddenly cut in before things could be discussed further. "Let us make our way to the Hokage so that we may complete our mission!"

As Gai ushered the group into the village he discreetly looked at the chunin guard who was holding up a stack of unfinished paperwork with a confused look, and mouthed later at him before grinning and following after the genin.

* * *

 _Hokage Tower, Hiruzen Sarutobi's POV..._

"Yosh! Team nine reporting in!" Gai announced happily as they entered the Hokage's office.

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up from his (accursed) paperwork at the newcomers to his office. He had to suppress a wince at Gai's "youthful" attitude that had thankfully only managed to infect one of the man's students thus far. He truly did not dislike the man but his personality led to any relationships with the man to being strained. Of course Hiruzen had his own suspicions of just how much of Gai's personality was real and how much of it was a mask to hide his true intellect.

"Our youthful mission was a success Hokage-sama! However, on our return we encountered someone whose flames of youth burn brightly and would be a youthful addition to Konoha!" Gai announced.

Then again he knew what people said about assuming.

Sarutobi inspected the newcomer Gai had indicated and quickly took a few mental notes about his appearance. First off the red hair that would suggest Uzumaki heritage but on its own proved nothing. Further inspection however left no doubt to the boys parental origins. Most notably the Uzushiogakure hitai-ate and the Uzumaki clan symbol on his shirt. Of course just knowing he was an Uzumaki did not reveal his exact origins or why Gai had brought him along back to the village.

After taking in the boy's physical appearance the Professor took note of how the boy appeared to be emotionally. He was hiding it well, but there was a look in his eye the old man had seen time and again on the battlefield. One that was attributed with someone in mourning, which might explain why Gai decided to bring him along if he had no reason to stay wherever he had been living.

"I'll need a full report on what occurred during the escort of that Merchant Caravan." Hiruzen said pulling himself out of his thoughts. "But I will admit I am very curious where you found your companion and just what events led to him joining you on your return."

So Gai explained the story making it a tad more youthful than it probably was. Then again this was Gai, who had a student that had become a virtual clone of him, therefore doubling the amount of youth in any given situation involving the pair.

"So to sum it up." Sarutobi began, massaging his temples and already fighting off the oncoming migraine this whole situation was creating. "The mission went off without a hitch and you then decided to take your team on a detour to visit Uzushio's ruins and give a history lesson. Upon arriving in Uzushio you decided to make camp in the old Uzumaki Compound where you found Naruto here trapped inside a scroll of his own design, who had no idea what happened to his village until you told him. Then you decided to bring him along back to Konoha with you?"

"That is correct Hokage-sama!" Gai said with his Nice-Guy Pose™.

"Well then Gai thank you very much for your report. Now I believe I may have some matters to discuss with Uzumaki-san here, you make pick up your payment with my secretary." Hiruzen directed.

Team Nine soon left, two of the genin shooting quick looks back at Naruto before the door closed behind them.

"Now then," Hiruzen started already wondering what kind of political nightmare this was going to bring in the near future, "Shall we discuss your future in this village?"

* * *

 **Ooh! A kinda cliffhanger!**

 **Yeah I wanted to get this out of Christmas. It is my first gift of many to you my readers! I should be able to get a few chapters out on most of my stories before break is over.**

 **Well anyway I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I'll get to reviews next time because there are quite a few right now which aren't exactly written for addressing.**

 **Now the character of Naruko/Natsumi will be somewhat similar to canon Naruto but I plan on adding character traits that will firmly make her a clearly different person.**

 **Anyway until next we meet! See ya!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


	5. Chapter 5

**What's this? We finally get chapter five? How exciting!**

 **Sorry this took so long. Wasn't quite sure how to write it. Still not sure how I feel about it.**

 **I'm very, very tempted to down the serious factor on this story but I already have a semi-crack story and don't want to turn this into another one. So I have to go through all the characters and how they should and would act and then I have to make sure it's all logical.**

 **Also I can't write fluff for the life of me.**

 **Well I can, it's just… difficult.**

 **And I got a final name for Kushina's daughter: Kamaboko! Yes it's a ramen topping. That's the joke. Laugh peasants. Laugh I say! We'll meet her this chapter and I will attempt to explain what the Sandaime is up to when I get to his POV.**

 **And while writing this I realized I needed to rework the teams.**

 **Dammit.**

* * *

 _Naruto POV, Konoha..._

Naruto wandered down the Konoha street staring at the address on the piece of paper the Sandaime Hokage had given to him. Apparently this was the building the only other known Uzumaki in Konoha lived in. Unfortunately it was not his sister who the Hokage had confirmed was dead.

That hurt quite a bit. While he hadn't been trying to get his own hopes up, there had been a small desperation to have someone he remembered still alive. Even if she was much older. But if this girl was who he suspected she was…

The Hokage had been quite understanding of his dilemma. He was willing to let Naruto join Konoha's shinobi force but he had been asked to attend at least one term at Konoha's shinobi academy in order to gain a basic understanding of how Konoha and the shinobi world as a whole functioned in this day and age.

He wasn't exactly pleased about going back to the academy. He clan never really focused on the theory part of the Shinobi arts. The only reason they made everyone master calligraphy was so there was less of a chance to screw up seals due to simple mistakes in brush strokes. The worst part was that it seemed in this more "civilised" time, academics were treated as far more important to young shinobi than properly building stamina.

Naruto snorted at the thought. Although he did vaguely recall his non-Uzumaki classmates calling hax due to his naturally high stamina.

Who wanted to learn boring stuff like math and science? The only math you need to know is how to tell time and count ramen money! Or at least that's what one of his older cousins once told him when he was younger.

He honestly wasn't sure how he was going to get through things on his own. Or with this apparent relative maybe. The Sandaime assured him that she was at least half Uzumaki. He of course wondered what exactly the Hokage had meant by that but decided not to pry. It had taken every ounce of self control he had to be completely mature and proper. He was not gonna screw that up and make himself look bad.

To be honest the Uzumaki were a rather… rambunctious group to say the least. Naruto wasn't all that much different. The only reason he hadn't been his usual self was due to the fact that, well… It was actually fairly obvious come to think of it.

He shook himself out of his thoughts and took in the sights. They were different. Way different than what he was used to. Uzushio was on an island and constantly smelled of the sea. This place was way inland.

The buildings were different too. While parts of Uzushio were more traditional the village had also been attempting a new form of architecture with multiple multi storied structures made of brick and concrete. Obviously the trend had not caught on despite his grandfather's insistence it would be the next "big thing."

Crazy old coot.

Kami he missed him. All of them.

He started going over what he had been told at the Uzushio academy and by his own parents about how to handle grief at the loss of a loved one. Or in his case the loss of _all_ his loved ones. It was to be expected that you would lose people in the shinobi lifestyle but he was far from prepared for this kind of event.

On the bright side Konoha seemed friendly enough. No one really called him out on what he was doing but a few people gave him odd looks at his choice of clothes or when they got a good look at his headband and saw that it was not the leaf of Konoha. He had ended up taken off his Uzushio hitai-ate and was currently staring at it as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

Naruto had just been struck by the fact that while he could continue his ninja career as a leaf nin he would not be a whirlpool nin anymore. Technically he was a whirlpool genin and would always be but that was it. He could and _would_ become a chunin and jounin eventually but it would be as a Konoha Shinobi.

But while he had some plans for the future there was one tiny little problem.

What was the point?

What was the end goal, why should he even bother going on? It wasn't fair damn it. His hand tightened around the fabric in his hands. Why was he still around when everyone else was gone? Why was he the one left behind?

All questions he'd have to figure out. He sighed and perked up when a somewhat familiar smell hit his nostrils. It was different yet the same, if that made sense.

Naruto could worry about the future later. He stuffed his old headband and the directions in his pocket. For now, ramen!

* * *

 _Sarutobi Hiruzen, Hokage's Office POV, Same time…_

Discovering the fact another Uzumaki was alive had been shocking. The fact said Uzumaki had actually managed to trap himself in a seal just before Uzushio was destroyed and therefore was basically a ninja out of time just made the whole matter more surprising.

Then again, this was the Uzumaki clan. The clan who inspired such fear that it lead to two villages sending thousands of ninja out into what was the bloodiest battle of the entire Second Shinobi World War. Not to mention the most rambunctious group of people in all of the element nations.

This situation provided a number of options and opportunities.

The existence of a full-blooded Uzumaki who was raised by the clan for his entire life thus far and more than likely knew a good deal about sealing if he had been experimenting during his unfortunate accident, could cause untold problems. If word got to nations like Iwa and Kumo then the situation could rapidly spiral out of control.

But if the situation was properly managed it could very well benefit Konoha greatly. After he had confirmed this boy was who he said he was Hiruzen had made the decision to tempt fate a bit and point him towards the only other Uzumaki in the village. Whom, presumably based on the information the boy had tentatively given him, was actually his niece.

Personally he believed that both children could benefit from meeting and interacting. Naruto had just lost his family and needed something to anchor himself and Kamaboko had always been alone and while the girl did not always act like it, would do anything to have a friend she could trust her own age.

Hiruzen would of course have to carefully monitor the situation. He had already instructed a few ANBU to discreetly follow Naruto and ensure he did not cause any trouble, get into any trouble or a variety of other things that could possibly go wrong.

The potential benefits of this situation were a gamble but one he was willing to take. Despite that there were many who may think him either a spineless puppet leader or a manipulative bastard, he did try his best to appease everyone. In this situation he was trying to both repay Konoha's debt to their long lost allies as well as helping his surrogate granddaughter. Sending Naruto directly towards Kamaboko was a bit straightforward but with Uzumaki that was normally what was necessary.

There was also the benefit of having someone who actually knew a good deals about seals living in the village. Most ninja knew about explosive seals and storage seals but few could actually craft them. He himself was well versed in fuuinjutsu, as was Jiraiya, but neither of them could compare to what Minato and Kushina had been capable of, Kushina was mostly self taught due to the loss of her clan when she was so young and yet she had been able to do things with seals that had left even Minato dumbfounded at times.

There was an old saying after all. If you wanted to work with fuuinjutsu, you had better be completely stoned, smashed drunk, a once in a generation genius, or an Uzumaki.

Seeing as how Jiraiya would drink before messing too much with seals, Hiruzen would smoke, Minato had been a genius, and Kushina was an Uzumaki the trope seemed to fit quite accurately.

There was concern for what this could do to the political state of the village however. The balance that had been thrown for a loop with the massacre of the Uchiha clan had finally begun to return with the Hyuuga at the top of the pecking order. While he doubted Hiashi would ever admit such he had suspicion the man was quite pleased with the deaths of their longtime rival clan, just as the Uchiha had once been silently pleased with the near extinction of the Senju.

It was possible that the Uzumaki would never become a true clan of Konoha though. Two preteen members were hardly a clan afterall and the Uzumaki had never been a leaf based clan in the first place. They had been very strong allies of course but they had there own thing going on in whirlpool country. Actually they had a village long before the premise of ninja villages had ever been dreamed up. Uzushiogakure had not always been a hidden village. It had once just Uzushio before they heard of what Hashirama and Madara had put together. At that point though, everyone was doing it and they would never achieve major hidden village status.

They didn't let it keep them down though.

In fact if the Uzu ninja hadn't managed as much damage as they had to the invading forces during the Second Shinobi World War, Hiruzen had his doubts that Konoha would have eventually won the conflict.

After the attack Iwa and Kumo had less than half of the ninja that Konoha, Kusa, and Suna had available for combat. When Hanzo the Salamander had seen that there was little chance for victory against such superior forces, he had broken off with his allies and basically withdrawn from the conflict. It wasn't like Ame's former partners had the ability to stop them. Kiri had not even been involved with the war, dealing with some sort of internal power struggles at the time that had lead to the age that gave it the name "Bloody Mist".

So Hiruzen had a lot of reasons to ensure that Naruto joined Konoha. For the betterment of the village, for the debt they owed the Uzumaki clan, for the sake of his surrogate granddaughter.

Although, he briefly mused, perhaps putting two young Uzumaki together wasn't the best idea. Kushina had been a notorious prankster and Kamaboko was very much her mother's daughter, and on that subject, Naruto was her brother.

Maybe he should have waited and tried get a better gauge of Naruto's personality first.

Perhaps it wasn't too late, he took out his crystal plot device and used it to view Naruto and see where he was and what he was up to.

His eyebrows went up when he saw where he was and what he was doing. It seemed it was too late after all.

Far too late.

* * *

 _Naruto POV, Ichiraku Ramen Bar, a short while earlier…_

Ah ramen.

Amazing, delicious, (not so) nutritious, ramen.

It wasn't Oushi Ramen that had been the place to go in Uzushio but it was still ramen.

The place was not all that impressive, just a little ramen bar with an overhang and some high hanging curtains. A small place called Ichiraku Ramen Bar. But it smelled good, and furthermore it tasted pretty damn good too. Almost exactly like Oushi come to think of it.

The man who owned the stand and his daughter were nice enough and he made some small talk with the daughter, a girl (technically? Not technically?) several years his senior named Ayame.

"Huh, you really like ramen don't ya?" Ayame had commented upon seeing Naruto chow down on his meal.

"I don't like it." He paused and scowled, "I love it." He finished with sincerity in his words.

"Clearly." she chuckled. "I haven't seen you around here before, though." She commented looking thoughtful.

Naruto thought for a brief moment about how to answer. "I'm new in town." He decided to answer with, it was the truth after all.

"How new?" She asked.

"Well considering I just got here today, I'd say pretty dang new." Naruto told her.

"Huh, so what you come to Konoha for then? Your parents move here for some reason? Dad told me he and my mom moved here for the protection. A lot less likely to have the the town ransacked by bandits or something of the like." Ayame explained.

Naruto's mood dropped when she mentioned his parents. "I'm here on my own." He said simply not offering any explanation and just went back to focusing on his ramen.

Ayame's brow furrowed before her eyes widened and her mouth made an "O" shape as she put two and two together and got four. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't-"

"Don't be." Naruto sighed and stared at the steaming bowl in front of him. "It's not your fault. You didn't know."

They were silent for a few moments before Naruto felt a bit bad about stopping their conversation like that. "So it's just you and your dad working the stand?"

"Yep." She said sounding a tad relieved to use a different topic. "We're not exactly a gourmet restaurant so we don't get too much business. That and dad doesn't trust anyone with the family recipe."

"Really?" Naruto asked surprised.

"He's a bit paranoid. Apparently on his mom's side he there was this big famous ramen place that was destroyed during the second shinobi world war." She explained. "It was one of the few things they managed to save."

"Who would destroy ramen?" Naruto nearly shouted in shock.

"Don't know. Dad doesn't like to talk about." Ayame shrugged, "I don't push him on it."

"Hmm." Naruto hummed as he kept eating. He almost didn't notice when another customer walked in and sat a few seats next to him. Ayame turned her attention to the new customer and her face flashed with recognition.

"If isn't our best customer." She chuckled slightly. "I'm guessing you want your usual?"

"No I want something completely different." came a rather sarcastic reply. From the voice the new customer was a girl. Naruto would investigate when he was done with his meal.

"Cut back a bit on the sas or there might be more of your "favorite" topping." Ayame scolded and from the way she said favorite it was most certainly not just that.

"No!" The voice suddenly yelped personality doing a complete one-eighty. "Not that! Please you wouldn't the cruel?!" Came the very dramatic reply.

"Oh relax, I'm kidding." Ayame laughed shaking her head. "Honestly for someone as sarcastic as you, you sure take things way too seriously."

Naruto slurped up the last noodle with a rather loud wet sound and glanced at the other customer. Then did a double take and blurted out the first word that came to mind.

"Kushina?!"

Both girls looked at him and that gave him a moment to get a better look at the new girl. While she certainly looked like Kushina, it was very clearly a different person. The hair color was wrong, blonde not red, as was the eye color, a rather striking blue. Not to mention the oddly symmetrical whisker marks on both cheeks. That and the fact she looked around his age.

"Who?" Came to simultaneous question from both females.

"Sorry." Naruto shook himself. "It's just you look like someone I knew."

"Oh yes," the girl rolled her eyes, "because I look like _so_ many people.

"I didn't say that." Naruto scowled. "I said you looked like one person. Who you are clearly not."

"Well considering I've never met or seen you before I would agree. But then that would be making you right, so I won't!" She shot back.

Ayame just jotted down the girl's order and handed it back to her father. She had made the wise decision not to get involved in this argument in the making.

"You're certainly _rude enough_ to be Kushina." Naruto grumbled. "But she wasn't as loud and was _slightly_ smaller."

"I am not rude. And I'm not small either!" The girl raised her voice.

"I didn't call you small!" Naruto directed at her. "But now that you bring it up you are a midget!"

"I'm not small!" The girl said slightly more defensively. She looked towards Ayame for help. "Ayame-nii tell him I'm not small!"

"Well from my point of view you're both pretty short." Ayame teased enjoying herself immensely.

"Whose side are you on!?" Naruto cried out. Which was quickly followed by a similar statement from the other girl.

"Hmm." Ayame appeared to think about it for a moment. "Neither of your's." She decided and was met with twin pouts.

"You're so mean." The blonde girl complained.

"Well since I'm so mean I guess I won't be getting your ramen." Ayame sighed with exasperation.

"I'm sorry!" The girl squeaked.

"Prove it." Ayame dared her.

The girl seemed to think about it. She then turned to Naruto and put on a big grin that he couldn't tell if she was faking or not. "I'm sorry for being so rude, Tomato-san."

Naruto noticed his eye twitch dangerously. He suddenly felt a very strong urge to strangle this girl, consequences for attacking a citizen of Konoha be damned. "...Tomato?" He questioned with murder promised in his words.

Both girls blanched and the blonde one immediately began backtracking. "Well, what I mean is, I don't know your name and well you kinda look like a spiked tomato with your hair and… uh…"

" _How about_ , you ask my _name_ then?" He suggested putting emphasis on his words.

"How about you each introduce yourselves then." Ayame suggested. They both looked at her and she sighed. "Well you obviously both like ramen, maybe you have other common interests. I'll help, he's new in town and really likes his ramen. She's our most frequent customer here."

They sat silently for a moment before Naruto decided to start. "Fine, I'm Uzumaki Naruto."

This got earned him shocked stares from both females. "What?" He asked feeling confused.

The younger of the two just worked her mouth silently, not managing any words. Ayame took the initiative. "Well Naruto, I was right you two do have something else in common."

She looked at the other customer. "This is Uzumaki Kamaboko."

Naruto felt his own eyes go wide and he mouthed "oh" silently. "So you're the one the old guy was talking about."

Kamaboko shook herself and had a mix of emotions in her eyes but she kept it out of her voice. "What old guy?"

Realizing what he just called the leader of the village Naruto coughed awkwardly. "*ahem* Uh, what I meant to say was Hokage-sama."

"And Jiji mentioned me?" Kamaboko asked.

"Well he said there was another Uzumaki living here. At first I thought it might be my sister, and like I said you look like her but he said she was dead." Naruto explained.

Kamaboko said nothing for a moment before standing up walking over to Naruto and getting in his face.

Naruto leaned back as she leaned forward her eyes boring into his. He couldn't help but wonder what she was doing right now.

She seemed to decide something and grabbed his arm and started dragging him. "Come on, we're going to see Jiji and he's tell me where you came from."

"But I can tell you where I came from!" Naruto exclaimed defensively.

"Tell someone who cares!" She shot back at him.

"Hey you have to pay!" Ayame protested.

Naruto reached into his pocket and tossed a wad of ryo on the counter as he was dragged onto the street. "Keep the change!" His voice carried back.

Ayame picked up the money and started inspecting it before confusion marred her features. "Huh, I thought this print went out of circulation years ago?" She muttered before shrugging and accepting the payment.

* * *

 **And thus I post something and don't make an April fools joke out of it!**

 **I considered doing that but decided not to in the end.**

 **So for the first time in forever this finally got an update. Isn't that nice?**

 **I'll be honest this almost didn't happen. I honestly thought about scrapping this story a number of times but considering how much people seemed to like this idea despite it being my first, confused and stumbling steps in the Naruto fandom I decided to figure out what I wanted to do and keep writing it.**

 **It certainly gives me an opportunity to go into lore that wasn't deeply investigated in the show as well as let's me write a mostly serious story centered in Konoha.**

 **I'm still deciding on parings and if I'm going to use the Adamantine Sealing Chains at all. I think I will though. I won't be asking about things anymore though because honestly whatever I choose people are going to be disappointed if it isn't what they wanted.**

 **So reviews!**

 **Kratos1991: I was already planning on using Tayuya, as to pairing her with Naruto? Maybe.**

 **Guest: Yeah, because I considered using one cliche name in a fanfiction which has a never before used premise… sigh, reviewers get worse everyday.**

 **Amacon: He's 11 physiologically, chronological age doesn't matter that much really. It's basically something that will just occasionally psyche him out. So basically they're the same age. Also no he's not being brought in at chunin, he is in no way whatsoever ready to be chunin. In a proper fight against the likes of Neji he would lose totally. Oh and which council? Lol.**

 **Reader51947141: It's not soon but here's an update!**

 **Snd: All these questions have been or will be answered.**

 **Arinasutio5: I'm not sure what you mean by "T" did you mean to write more but something happened to the rest?**

 **Guest(2): Glad you liked it!**

 **LunasTyrs: Your patience has paid off in full! Receive (1) fanfiction update(s)!**

 **That's all for this time!**

 **See you next week (maybe not this story)!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


	6. Chapter 6

**What's this? We return once again to my first Naruto story? How very youthful!**

 **Hate me all you want I'm not stopping.**

 **Also I try to keep consistency so lore and characters from this story may appear in my other Naruto based stories.**

 **On a different note… What the fuck guys?**

 **Last chapter I say I'm not going to listen to your ideas about pairings and I get reviews saying what pairings I should do.**

 **Including Kamaboko x Naruto.**

 **I already said I'm not doing incest unless it's somewhat distant relations. So seriously don't just skim my notes and say "Oh they mentioned pairings let me tell the amazing writer person what** _ **I**_ **want them to write to fulfill my inner fantasies!", actually** _ **read**_ **what I write down please.**

 **Literally, ideas for characters, jutsu(s?), personalities, literally** _ **anything**_ **except pairings I will consider and see if I can adjust it to work for the story, or see if it can inspire me to do something else.**

 **No more about pairings.** _ **Please.**_ **I have seen stories ruined because of the rage wars in reviews around pairings and the author gets too depressed to keep writing.**

 **Pairings, when and** _ **if**_ **they eventually happen in this story, or** _ **any**_ **of my stories, will be my decision and will be final. Don't throw a tantrum because you didn't get what you wanted, go write your own story or read one that suits your wants better.**

 **Okay, rant over, let's get to the story!**

* * *

 _Konoha, Hokage's Tower…_

"Jiji!"

Hiruzen sighed and pushed the document he had been in the middle of signing to the side, something about requisition of a transfer "from Team Nine to literally any other team." He was sure it was really just fine, after all how bad could a team be?

(Elsewhere Tenten's eye twitched as Neji ranted about fate and Lee and Gai hugged and formed Forbidden Technique: Sunset no Jutsu. At least that redhead kid had been normal enough.)

At least he already knew what Kamaboko was here about. How could he not? Since he had realized she was coming he had been trying to figure out how to explain things to her without revealing any S-rank secrets of the village. Telling her about Kushina was somewhat risky but she and Minato had done a _very_ good job at keeping their relationship hushed up for various reasons from assasination attempts to just plain privacy matters.

Now that he had decided to allow Naruto to join the village for various reasons he had best explain to Kamaboko about Kushina and allow Naruto to explain the Uzumaki clan to the girl, without mentioning certain nine-tailed demonic chakra entities of course, though as far he knew the full blooded Uzumaki knew next to nothing about the situation surrounding the demon and its previous or current vessels.

Hiruzen planned to keep it that way for the time being. While he doubted that Naruto who had been raised around Fuuinjutsu masters would make the mistake between the prison and the prisoner, he would still rather keep as few people from knowing about it as possible at this point and after the disastrous results eleven years ago…

Best not reveal more than one village secret today. Even if it was really only half of a village secret. Kushina, while somewhat well known, had never had the fame of her husband. So while there was some concern about letting who her mother was go public it should not be cause for too much alarm. Especially considering he had no intention of announcing it in a grand show to the gathered populace.

"Yes Kama-chan?" He questioned his surrogate granddaughter as she walked in dragging her similarly aged, time displaced uncle behind her.

"Explain, dattebaju!1" She thrust Naruto forward who briefly stumbled. He quickly straightened himself and waved at Hiruzen.

"That is Naruto. Yes you are really related. No I'm not messing with you. Yes he is for real." Hiruzen answered the questions he knew she was most likely to ask.

Kamaboko blinked owlishly at him apparently not prepared for his quick and planned answers. She was brighter than most people gave her credit for but Hiruzen was not called "The Professor" for his failure to read a person or situation and react to it accordingly.

"Well where has he been then?!" She finally demanded. Her voice held childish tone of a child yet he could detect a lot of other emotions under it that the girl was trying to hide. Anger, sadness, loneliness, disbelief, distrust. It honestly hurt to think about how she must feel about a relative finally appearing out of the blue. He still remembered when she was younger and would ask about her parents, he had of course never given her a straight answer and would subtly shift the subject. At one point she realized she was not going to get an answer and just stopped asking.

Before he answered he briefly gave an internal grimace about how she was going to react to finally finding out about her mother. Maybe she would be able to work out logically why he had withheld the information from her but that didn't mean she would just accept it on an emotional level. She would likely be hurt and angered at him.

But like tearing off a band-aid it would have to be done.

Though it was best to take things one at a time. Her mother's identity would come but he would answer her other questions before she was to angry at him to talk to him.

"He's been…" Hiruzen trailed off trying to think of exactly how to word it. Perhaps blunt truth would be the best option. "...trapped inside of an experimental seal of his own design for the past thirty years or so."

Kamaboko just blankly stared at him and Naruto pressed his hands to his face in a mixture of embarrassment and disbelief. Perhaps that had been a bit too blunt. Yes, thinking more about it, even if it was the truth, what had actually happened sounded like a last minute white lie to tell an overly curious child.

Actually it reminded him of when Asuma was a child and had walked in on himself and Biwako having… nevermind that was not important right now.

"What the heck does that mean?" She growled after she got over her immediate disbelief. Clearly she still did not believe him.

Hiruzen sighed and massaged his temples, now he needed to giver her a crash course in Fuuinjutsu. Well maybe not a crash course so much as just explaining to her some of the basic aspects of it. "Kama-chan what do you know about sealing?" He asked her in a patient tone of voice.

The return of the blank look was all the answer he required. Although Naruto looked somewhat affronted that his niece had no idea what sealing was.

"It's that stuff that puts stuff inside of other stuff right?" She finally answered, not sounding overly interested in the matter. Hiruzen internally winced, not quite the most elegant way to put it but at least she did have some gist of how it worked. Even if it was _severely_ lacking.

"How do you not know what Fuuinjutsu is!?" Naruto finally shouted in clear frustration.

"I just explained what it was didn't I?" She shot back at him.

"No!" Naruto started but then scrunched up his facial features in thought. "Well… kind of? It's a terrible definition if there ever was one." He muttered the last part, more to himself than to his late sister's daughter.

"Kama-chan," The Sandaime cut back into the conversation before it could deteriorate, "Fuuinjutsu is an advanced shinobi art that uses a special script that allows us to create seals for many purposes. It let's us seal items, chakra even people in extreme cases." He sent a pointed look at the full blooded Uzumaki in the room who attempted to whistle innocently.

"Okay but what does that have to do with me." Her eyes then briefly widened and she glanced at Naruto, "Wait he sealed himself?"

"Wasn't trying to." He muttered looking quite put off at the question.

"Kama-chan…" Hiruzen sighed deeply and felt his age bearing down on him yet again. He was far too old for this job and lifestyle, yet he would follow it through to the end. "When you used to ask about your parents I never told you the answer. I am deeply sorry for that but your parents had enemies and without them to protect you, you would be a target for their ire."

Kamaboko's eyes narrowed in thought. No doubt she was processing this information and trying to figure out what to do with it. Become angry and try to take it out on him? Shut herself down and ignore things around her. Nevertheless he took her silence as an opportunity to continue.

"Your mother was one of the last members of the Uzumaki clan." He started again, "The Uzumaki had a village of their own called Uzushio and were our allies. Near the end of the second war your mother was in Konoha visiting a relative." He specifically made sure to avoid revealing just _why_ she was visiting the relative. "While she was here, Uzushio was invaded and destroyed. Survivors of the clan scattered some came here, some hid for fear of what would happen if their enemies found out any were still alive."

"But why didn't you tell me?!" Kamaboko finally blurted out. Naruto looked oddly uncomfortable, likely he felt this conversation seemed to be more of a private affair that he was an outsider in. "I already use the name Uzumaki so what does it matter if I knew who my mother was?" She sounded hurt, and angry but the hurt seemed to be winning out for now.

"Because there was no connection to your mother." Hiruzen told her patiently. "Orphans in Konoha in the past have often used the name Uzumaki to honor our former allies, it would be widely assumed that you were just another one. You got your coloring from your father's side so most would not make the connection between you and the clan."

She remained quiet for a moment likely experiencing emotional turmoil. "So why tell me now?" she finally asked, her voice worryingly void of emotions. Something very out of character for the normally loud, apparently happy, and (at times) sarcastic girl.

"I'm tell you this now because of him." He pointed at Naruto who looked surprised at suddenly being put on the spot. Kamaboko studied him briefly before turning back to Hiruzen a question no doubt on her tongue.

"As I said before, Naruto here accidentally trapped himself in a seal before Uzushio was destroyed. This allowed him to survive, albeit in stasis, so when one our teams found freed him during an unplanned detour to the ruins they brought him back here. He hoped to find his sister who had been away from the village at the time."

Kamaboko's eyes widened and her mouth formed an "O" shape. "My mother." She muttered softly, she looked at her uncle. "You said I looked like Kushina, that was my mom's name wasn't it."

Naruto shrugged. "Unless there was another Uzumaki here then yes. The old ma-" He cut off and shot a nervous glance at Hiruzen who hid his amused grin behind his hands. "I mean Hokage-sama, told me she was dead but there was still an Uzumaki living here."

"Me?" She guessed, her voice sounded almost hopeful as she turned back to Hiruzen who realized this might have very well been the best way to reveal one of her parents to her. She would be hurt by the fact she had never been told and would likely mourn the person who should have been there to raise her. But introducing her to another family member who actually knew her mother and was mourning her loss as well? That could help both of them.

When Hiruzen nodded in confirmation she turned to Naruto and inspected him once again. "So you're my uncle then?" She commented after a moment.

Naruto blinked as though the idea had just occurred to him and then groaned. "Oh kami that makes me sound old."

"But you're really related to me? And you..." She seemed to search for the right words for a moment. "Like me?" She finally finished.

"Well, I guess you're okay." Naruto decided, "You're not your mom, and I don't really want you to be but, I think we can get along." He grinned at her.

A very large grin spread across Kamaboko's features, different from her usually grin, this one was not the grin she strung up with her declarations of becoming hokage, not the one she used with her normal charisma. This was a smile that existed because for one of the rare opportunities in her life, she honestly had something to be happy about. It was somewhat bittersweet in that she hardly ever had the opportunity to use it, Hiruzen mused silently to himself.

"Yes!" She cheered and lunged at Naruto squeezing him in a manner that certainly looked to be quite uncomfortable for the red headed boy. "I always wanted to have a family, well I wanted a whole family but you'll work!"

"Thanks." Naruto puffed out as his midsection was still in the middle of being compressed by the smaller human shaped ball of energy. "Could you let go? I can't breath."

"Sorry." she said not sounding very apologetic at all but let go of him all the same, "I just got a bit excited. I can finally use someone to play dress up!" She plotted rubbing her hands together in a manner most

"W-what?' Naruto questioned looking pale. Hiruzen vaguely recalled Kamaboko wanting to try dressing himself up when she was younger. Of course that was when he first started gaining suspicions of her being colorblind considering anything she tried to get him to where clashed horribly with the other articles of clothing. She had grown out of that phase years ago though, so he hypothesized that she was just teasing her relative.

Fortunately for Naruto's future sanity this was quickly confirmed. "I just messin' with you 'tebaju" she laughed at his expression. Naruto calmed down and gave a small chuckle of his own. "You already got good style." She indicated his already orange jacket.

"Finally!" Naruto exclaimed, "Someone who gets it! Mom kept saying it looked terrible!" He complained and then a sad expression briefly crossed his face. It disappeared quickly though, almost fast enough for Hiruzen to have missed it. When the boy joined the academy for a semester he should probably mention to the psychologist to talk to him a little bit. Losing one's family was a horrible experience.

"You two probably have a lot to discuss, but I have work to do." Hiruzen cut into their conversation feeling a bit guilty for disrupting the moment but it was more of a private conversation for a private setting. Therefore it could wait for the two of them to get back to Kamaboko's apartment.

"Fine." Aforementioned girl huffed, "We can go back to my apartment. Oh yeah you're probably going to be staying with me right?" She asked Naruto who nodded in confirmation to the question. "Well you can sleep on the house, and I'm only sharing ramen until you can get your own." She glared briefly before turning to lead him out.

"Does it have to be on the couch?" Naruto asked as he followed her.

"Of course not!" She brushed him off in a tone Hiruzen recognized well. "There's always the nice and comfy street, you can just come inside and borrow my shower in the morning."

"The couch sounds nice." Naruto conceded his defeat. But before they could properly leave Hiruzen stopped them.

"Before you go I should tell you everything concerning where you came from and how you arrived is being marked as an A-rank secret." He warned them, after all it was better to keep this mess somewhat hushed up from potential spies. "That means you can't just tell anyone about it all. When I finish designing 'the cover story I'll send for you."

"Thanks Hokage-sama." The boy told him in a somewhat relieved tone. Obviously he had been trying to think of how he could explain his arrival to anyone who asked.

"Why do you call him 'Hokage-sama'?" Kamaboko asked making quotations in the air. "Just call him old man, he is one afterall!" Said "old man" heard her finish even as the door closed behind them.

Hiruzen sighed when he realized that Kamaboko had not even said goodbye to him. It could have been that she was too caught up with the fact she had a living, breathing relative, but he had known that girl her entire life. When she was angry at someone she didn't make it too obvious, it was subtle things, perhaps being a tad more polite than was normal, sometimes a prank at a very inopportune moment.

He knew that she could understand why he had kept secret what he had, the question is how long until she was willing to forgive him for it?

Only time would tell.

* * *

 _Elsewhere, under Konoha…_

Danzo read over the report his operative that was assigned to watching the Hokage's office had just handed him. He could scarcely believe what he was reading. It was so fantastic that he could not just accept it as fact.

Then again, for all his faults Hiruzen was no fool when it came to accepting members of the village. Perhaps he was a bit too naive when it came to using such assets but the man would never allow someone who intended to do harm stay in the village. Especially not after that whole fiasco with Orochimaru some years earlier.

But that still begged the question what were the odds of an event such as this occurring? A team traveling to the ruined village of Konoha's former allies and discovering a young survivor trapped within a seal of his own creation that just so happened to have access to the locked away secrets of the Uzumaki clan? It was enough to make even the greatest of skeptics scoff at the likelihood of it all.

Nevertheless, despite the unlikeliness of the whole situation he could hardly conduct any real investigation into it without any proof, and matters had escalated too far for him to simply attempt to "recruit" this Uzumaki Naruto into Root.

A pity but perhaps this could work for the better. If the boy could relate good memories with Konoha then he was more likely to stay loyal, and if he was loyal then his only remaining family, who would no doubt latch onto him, would remain loyal to the village as well.

Danzo was not quite a pessimist but neither was he an optimist. He simply took things as they were and considered both the positive and negative aspects of each of them and how likely each outcome was. While there could be concerns about the boy having lingering loyalties to his old village, there was no village left to hold loyalty above all else to. Just some crumbling ruins, memorials to a time long past.

Keeping the Kyuubi jinchuuriki loyal to Konoha had always been a concern of Danzo. In times past Mito had been loyal to the village her husband had help found and had always been a more traditional woman rather than a true Kunoichi. A sealing mistress certainly, but not one adept at combat. When Kushina had arrived he had at first held concerns about how loyal she would stay to Konoha but that situation had resolved itself when Uzushio had been destroyed so she had stayed loyal to the only home she had left.

But with Kamaboko he had begun to have concerns. While it was true that Konoha had been the only home she had ever known, once she was old enough to take missions outside the village she would immediately see the differences in the denizens treatment of her. Once this happened she might decide she liked living somewhere else better than she liked staying in the place that had mistreated and neglected her save for a handful of people.

It is for these reasons that Danzo had pressed for her to join Root when the organization had been an at least somewhat official group under Konoha's standards. Now that the foundation was technically illegal he had to be much more discreet about his efforts regarding the Jinchuuriki. But the jinchuuriki had to be loyal to Konoha above all else and constantly relating it with people who had mistreated her was hardly a proud standard.

However if this Naruto could be taught to be unquestionably loyal to Konoha and if the relationship between the two Uzumaki became one of family as it already appeared to be fast becoming then there may not be a need to recruit the girl to Root. He would rather have her in Root as she was a weapon for Konoha but Danzo could be realistic and was willing to settle for her remaining loyal to Konoha.

But for now he could not act openly to push things one way or the other. He could use his operatives to provide subtle pushes but that would be difficult. Perhaps he could attempt to place a plant within the academy. If what his report said was correct then both of the Uzumaki would be there for at least the next semester. Perhaps he could "vouch" for a good potential candidate?

With a quick order to a nearby agent he had a number of files on operatives in that age group before him. He began looking through them attempting to find one that could work.

After a few minutes he had what he was looking for. A twelve year old male who had not yet passed the final initiation of killing his partner so therefore would hopefully not be completely emotionless. And also he had that useful talent that evolved from his hobby of painting. Yes this one could work nicely, Danzo thought to himself as he stared at the file picture. A pale boy with black hair and an emotionless expression stared back.

* * *

 **And that's a wrap!**

 **So yeah, Danzo's plotting, Kamaboko and Naruto are starting to work things out and I finally got myself to update this.**

 **Also I find it interesting how this has the fewest words of any of my Naruto stories and yet it is the most popular.**

 **Sorry if how I'm portraying the emotions of the situation are off. My coping mechanism for things like this involve adding a degree of possibly insensitive humor to everything. I'm trying to avoid that as it seems OOC but I'm having trouble portraying them the way they should be acting.**

 **Not much else to say now, just that next chapter I'll get to some relationship building between those two and start looking into the stuff Naruto grabbed from the Uzumaki clan compound.**

 **Let's get to the reviews!**

 **YamiSlade: Thanks!**

 **Sparrowhawk13: Glad you that you think so!**

 **Flowerbelle: That's a good idea with Menma, I might use that but I would like to reiterate I'm not taking ideas for pairings. I may or may not pair people up but it will be my decision on the matter.**

 **Amacon: Again, I am **_**NOT**_ **taking any pairings for this story. Or any of my stories. Sorry about not going as into their meeting last chapter, or this one for that matter but it will all be handled in the next one. I promise.**

 **Seldom Early: I actually debated doing that. But I decided to just post the actual chapter rather than piss people off with a fake one. Still, I'm sure a lot of people didn't bother clicking thinking it was a prank.**

 **Lalalu: Yes, at long last I finally update this!**

 **Ferchuelrey: Once again,** **I am not accepting any pairings.** **Also I already said no incest. So kind of killing both my rules there.**

 **A reader: Much like the Spanish Inquisition it was.**

 **xiaomaome101Gmail . com:** **Yeah it is by far my shortest Naruto story, yet ironically my most popular. And don't worry I'm not making this Kamaboko x Naruto, I never planned to do that.**

 **RavenStag: I'm glad you find my writing that good!**

 **Bigfan22: I admit that Kamaboko is a bit awkward sounding but I was trying to go for an original name for female Naruto other than Naruko or Natsumi. I could have used Mito but that's used quite a lot too. But to be fair I'm sure Naruto was an awkward name before people got used to it. Seriously it's a ramen topping.**

 **Well that's all for now folks see you next week for…**

 **You know I actually don't know what to update. Maybe I'll do something new, or maybe Gone Ghost. Don't know yet.**

 **Until then, bye!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


	7. Chapter 7

**What's this? Another chapter I didn't know how to write until I started it? How peculiar!**

 **Yeah that basically sums up why it took me so long to get this chapter finished and published.**

 **It tends to happen with a good number of my stories, I have point A and I know what point B is but I have no idea how to get from point A to point B. You could call it my unique writing style. Or poor planning. It's probably just poor planning but unique writing style sounds better.**

 **Also, I'm trying to write Naruto as character who just lost his family without turning him into a trauma patient. Which is hard.**

 **What? Noooo... I definitely didn't forget to post on Wednesday because I was busy/tired...**

* * *

 _Naruto POV, Konoha…_

Naruto was not quite sure what to think of his one known remaining family member. To be honest, he was glad he had relatives that were, well, not dead. But the issue was that while she was indeed an Uzumaki and his sister's daughter, he had never met her before. While it was nice to know there was at least one other Uzumaki out there, his family as he knew them, were dead.

Nevertheless, the fact that he was not completely alone, and his family did in fact survive in the form of Kamaboko, kept him from falling into miserable spirits. He also knew that if they were around, his family wouldn't want him to lose sight of himself and just fall into depression. That didn't stop the cold pit that formed in his chest every time he thought of the fact he would never see them again, but it was a start.

In a way he wasn't sure whether it would be selfish to think he had it worse than his niece (which was still weird to think about). He had lost his family, but she had never had one in the first place. The more he thought about it though, the more miserable it made him feel. Seriously, what kind of world was it where things like this could happen. Entire clans wiped out and their last members growing up as orphans? That was messed up.

Though as Naruto observed the other Uzumaki, he noticed something, not about her particularly but about the people around her. Now, Naruto was hardly an observant person, (not exactly all that odd for his clan), but honestly it was kind of hard to miss. Either the people around them glared at her, or pointedly ignored her. No one was even trying to hide what they were doing. None of them said or did anything other than the way they were looking but it was still noticeable.

Naruto decided not to comment on it right now, especially since Kamaboko appeared to be ignoring it. He would try to ask her about it later, although it seemed like a really awkward subject to bring up to someone. If the conversation seemed to lead in that direction he would deal with it then.

But this would soon be forgotten, because Naruto had other concerns that came up once they reached Kamaboko's apartment.

The concerns that came up started with the obvious problem.

"Where do I keep my stuff?" Naruto asked looking around the cluttered apartment for the first time.

In all actuality, Kamaboko's apartment was not all that small. It was actually larger than most single bedroom apartments. The Sandaime could be thanked for this fact, although there wasn't much to it, the rooms were just slightly larger than they should be. But the fact of the matter is, while it housed one person quite comfortably, two people would find some difficulty sorting out the arrangements.

"Well… err…" Truth be told, Kamaboko had been extremely excited to have a living relative and even if she weren't so excited she was significantly angry at one of the few people she thought she could trust. So, she had not considered how they were going to get Naruto situated into the apartment, apart from sleeping arrangements that is. "We could get a box?" She suggested finally. "You don't really have much with you." She pointed out.

"Actually…" Naruto had the decency to look someone guilty. Considering he was carrying just about every scroll the Uzumaki had left behind in the compound and any of his own personal possessions that he could salvage, he actually had quite a lot.

"Does this have to do with those seals you were talking about before?" Kamaboko inquired, looking curious.

"Yeah." Naruto nodded eagerly and jumped at the opportunity to attempt to teach his relative about their heritage. "I have a bunch of storage seals on my arms." To emphasize, he rolled up his sleeves to show the seals. "I stored any of my stuff that survived in them, but most of them have things I saved from the compound."

"Well those don't look like too much-" Was all Kamaboko managed to say before Naruto activated the ones on his wrists causing roughly twenty scrolls a piece to poof into existence.

Kama just blinked at the sudden smoke burst and the multitude of storage scrolls that now littered the floor of her apartment. "And all the seals on your arms are full of those?"

"Most of them." Naruto shrugged. "I guess we can go and get another scroll to store them for now, in but I kind of want to look through them."

"That sounds boring." The girl said honestly. A part of Naruto couldn't help but agree with her. Working on seals were one thing, while they required patience, at least he knew he was getting somewhere.

"Well I can't just leave this stuff laying around, besides, there's got to be tons of cool stuff in these!" Naruto pointed out.

"Really?' Kamaboko asked skeptically.

"Well, there should be something!" Naruto claimed although he had his own doubts. Truth be told he had absolutely no idea what was contained in the vast number of scrolls he brought back from the compound. There had been several artifacts including some weapons, but he had no idea how to use any of them. All he could really do was hope that there were some new (technically old) and cool techniques he could learn inside them.

Kamaboko picked up the nearest scroll, only to discover that it had nothing more than another storage seal written on it. "Hey are all of these scrolls you have covered in more storage seals?" She asked.

Naruto glanced up at her as he tried to stack the remaining scrolls into a neater pile. "Yes…" He admitted.

"Jeez, how much stuff did you bring with you? I don't have this much stuff!" Kamaboko complained, making an attempt to open the seal but ended up pouring too much chakra into it by accident. The items contained within still appeared, but they burst out like projectiles and ricocheted across the room rather than simply appearing.

Naruto had ducked under a trio of century old kunai he had taken from the underground room at the Uzumaki Clan Compound. This action knocked over the pile of scrolls he had been stacking, once again scattering them all over the floor.

The redhead looked from the mess to Kamaboko who had the decency to look sheepish at her mistake.

"Okay, we can through all this stuff later. I'm just going to carry everything around with me for now, first I'm giving you a crash course in sealing." He narrowed his eyes in determination. Afterall, how hard could it be?

* * *

 _Kamaboko POV, Her Apartment, About An Hour Later…_

"What's that supposed to be, 'ttebayo?!"

"It's a dolphin! What do you think it is? It's a kanji!"

"It looks like a bunch of scribbles! Argh! Who taught you how to write?"

"I'm self taught, thank you very much, 'ttebaju!"

"Then get a better teacher!"

"What do you think you are?"

Sealing was hard, Kamaboko or as most people tended to call her, "Kama" decided. Kama just rolled off of the tongue easier. She honestly, didn't mind that, most people she knew called her that. Unless it was a serious matter, or she was in trouble. Or they were insulting her… In which case they normally made of fun of her name by calling her "Kamabaka."

If it wasn't obvious she preferred the shortest rendition of her name compared to the insult version or even the real one in some cases. Although it really depended on who was using it to be honest.

Back to current matter, sealing seemed really difficult to her. Well kind of. Truth be told she understood what he was saying pretty well. In fact just about everything he said made sense to her and she couldn't wait to try it out. The problem was, her handwriting was less than the neatest. In fact some of the bad grades she had received at the academy, weren't always the fact she did not know the answer (though that tended to happen a lot), but because whoever was grading could not read her answers.

So, yeah, it was kind of backwards for once. Because for once, she completely understood the theory of what she was trying to learn, but couldn't apply it properly.

Nevertheless, her uncle had taken it upon himself to help improve her handwriting skills.

Speaking of her uncle, she was both ecstatic and skeptical, concerning him. On the one hand, she was really excited to finally have a family member of any kind. On the other hand she knew next to nothing about him.

Well, that's not entirely true. She knew he liked ramen, he was apparently good at sealing and he was making an effort not to start acting like a certain classmate of hers, who shall remain nameless at this time. The part about liking ramen and not acting like the guy literally 90% of the other girls in her class liked won him quite a few points in her book.

But there was also the fact he was probably being nice to her and hanging out because he felt some sort of unfilled duty to his sister (who was apparently her mom). It had been years since she had even thought about her parents, or the fact that she had at one point had them.

Which brought her to a different problem entirely. One that she really did not want to think about and concerning the one person she thought she could trust above all others.

Kama did not like being mad at people, well she didn't like staying mad at people at least. It was simple logic that led to that philosophy really. Being angry at people neither made them more likely to treat her better, nor did it make her happy. If she was angry then she was unhappy and if she wanted to enjoy her life she didn't want to be unhappy. Really it made perfect sense if you thought about it.

So, while she really didn't mind if Naruto-oji-san (which she was definitely going to call him for awhile) was doing it to get closure about his sister and/or family dying. He was being nice to her and trying to be happy even though he clearly wanted to be upset. Which she kind of understood, but she could count the people she cared about on one hand and they were all still alive. Still, just thinking about losing them filled her with what she could guess was dread.

But she was finding it hard to stay positive right now. In fact for the first time in years she wanted to get angry and stay angry. She knew it wouldn't solve any problems or make her feel better in the end. It never had before after all, if anything it had just made things worse.

So, while Kama had no problems with Naruto, and was hoping they would get along. Although it was kind of weird that he was her uncle but was also the same age as her. She did have quite a big problem with her "Jiji."

Normally, if she had a problem like this, she would go to the Hokage and talk to him about. Except this time, her problem was with the Hokage.

Kama had never had a reason to be angry at Jiji before. Well, not really. She had gotten frustrated with him in the past when he had to go back to work and was not able to spend time with her but now she was mad at him for a completely different reason.

He had known who her parents were the whole time and had never told her when she asked. She remembered that she had asked a lot when she was younger. Who they were, what happened to them, had they cared about her? Eventually, she had decided that he just did not know who they were and had stopped asking after them. Now, to find out he knew the whole time and had just never told her was like a punch in the gut.

True, he apparently had his reasons and she was trying to focus on those to keep herself from getting angry at him, but it was hard. Yeah, the reason he gave her definitely made sense, but that didn't stop the fact that it hurt. A phrase Iruka-sensei had once used came to mind, "the truth hurts."

That sucked.

"Hey are you okay?" She blinked and looked up at the question that cut into her thought process.

"Wha'?" She muttered rubbing her eyes and focusing back at whatever her uncle was trying to tell her.

"You were kind of spacing out, are you tired?" He asked.

"I'm fine, just a bit hungry." She brushed off his concern although she had to admit it felt kind of nice to have someone actually be concerned about her wellbeing. "You want some ramen?"

"YES!" Naruto instantly shot up and seemed to teleport to the kitchen. For Kama, that was yet another sign they were going to get along.

When she pulled down two cups of instant ramen, Naruto just looked at her with a confused look on his face. "What's this?"

"Instant Ramen, duh." She turned her stove on in preparation.

"Wait, what?" Her redheaded relative stared at her in shock.

"What, did they not have Instant Ramen thirty years ago? She asked skeptically.

"No!" He said as he rapidly turned the cylinder to the instructions. "You mean you can just heat this up and you have a meal of ramen, just like that?" He asked with his own skepticism.

"Yeah…" She stared at him for a moment, "What else did they not have thirty years ago?"

"Well, people with bushy eyebrows and green tracksuits for one." Naruto commented offhandedly making it Kama's turn to be confused.

"...what." It wasn't even really a question. Just a reaction to a statement that was as outrageous as that.

"Long story and I'm sure you'll find out later." Her uncle shrugged obviously not thinking it too important despite Kam's own thoughts.

Another thought soon came to her, one that was going to be much more exciting and stimulating than practicing her handwriting. As much as she wanted to learn sealing, rewriting the same kanji over and over again until it was up to Naruto's standards was boring.

"Hey, did they have pranks thirty years ago?" She asked trying not to sound too eager.

"Yeah, we did." Naruto told her already starting to catch on.

"Well, Prank Queen of Konoha, I think it is my duty to test your skills Naruto-oji-san." She left out the self declared part. Truth was though, no one else was really vying for the title, so she kind of had free reign.

"Please don't make it a habit of calling me that." Naruto pleaded before answering. "And I guess I could show you a few things." A smirk that tended to be genetic appeared on his face.

"I think you have reversed who will show who what!" She declared.

"But ramen first right?"

"Well, duh. We're not savages."

* * *

 **Well this chapter took a long while to get posted.**

 **But I finally did it! As for not posting on Wednesday, I was in a car going on vacation. It was a long drive and I get car sick.**

 **Side note, yet another chapter written in a hotel room. This has happened multiple times over the last six months to be honest.**

 **Well, I hope you folks enjoyed the chapter, I finally got to writing some fluff that I personally think is terrible and desperately needs criticism. Also a bit of insight into Kamaboko's character as well as giving her a nickname that is less awkward!**

 **Also, I came up with some ideas for Uzumaki Clan members since the last chapter, some of it involves Kumo, Kusa, Oto and Random Civilian Village that no one has ever heard of!**

 **Oh, and I forgot to mention last chapter but Kama's verbal tic is Dattebaju.**

 **Time for reviews.**

 **Kaylafike500: Yep, but it kinda had to be done.**

 **Dragonfox123: Thanks a bunch!**

 **MIKE202303: That was my original plan but I thought it was too commonly used so I decided to come up with something different, but as I later learned, it has in fact been used before! So that's what I get, I guess. But hopefully you find her nickname less awkward.**

 **Bigfan22: Kama is going to be the main name used for her character now so hopefully you (and everyone else) like that better. As for solo student, I don't want to make him too much of a special snowflake, so probably not.**

 **Guest: Wow, okay, have fun living out your incest fantasies somewhere else.**

 **AmethystPone: Yeah, Uzumaki tend to be stronger when they're more emotional.**

 **Kyuzi4869: Don't worry about romance, I've said it before, I'll say it again, none of my stories will have romance as the central plot line. As entertaining as those can be, I'm not good at that kind of stuff. When and if romance happens it will be a subplot for character development.**

 **Ezcap1st: I sent you a PM but I'll say for everyone else's benefit that there is another author who used the name Kamaboko, I didn't find out until after I introduced her as a character so oops.**

 **Eternal king of Fire: Glad to have you!**

 **Foxy-Floof: Well that's almost always a given.**

 **Tsunade Senju: At long last here is my update!**

 **That's all for now people! Next two updates will be Gone Ghost as I desperately try to do my Christmas in July shtick.**

 **Until next we meet!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


	8. Chapter 8

**What's this? The new chapter produced in a much more timely fashion than the last one? How exciting!**

 **This chapter is going to be somewhat more lighthearted than the last one. I promise, really.**

 **Now this is very sad, but I don't have anything to rant about today. Well aside from how annoying political correctness can be but I doubt I'm the only one troubled by dotting i's and crossing t's for that mess.**

 **So no rant, no issues to address, no problem, let's get chaptering!**

 **What? No… this isn't a week late, what are you talking about?**

* * *

 _Naruto POV, Konoha…_

Pranking was a fine art developed over thousands of years, primarily by children and young people between the ages of eight and twenty-four. These heralds of ingenuity and more importantly, hilarity, will forever remain the unsung heroes of history. Even if the pranksters of the next generation do not remember the names or faces, they will perhaps remember the joy and slapstick humor that resulted in the suffering of others. Albeit a rather small amount of suffering.

So it was, that on the day two pranksters, a generation apart, met and decided to bring their powers down upon the unsuspecting leaf village, the heavens trembled and the people wept for this was to be their final hour with peace of mind!

Well, that's not actually what happened at all but Naruto liked to imagine it did. It was much more dramatic (also entertaining) like that.

No, what actually happened when the two decided to discuss pranking ideas was not quite as rainbows and unicorns. Actually neither was his imagining, where the heck did he get the idea of rainbows and unicorns from in the first place?

But that was all besides the point, let it be said putting two pranksters together was never a good idea for the general populace but it was certain to cause some stress amongst the pranksters themselves.

This was where the difference in times began to come into play.

While both Kama and Naruto could agree that they wanted to prank the general populace rather than just a single individual (because that was entirely too mean), they could not come to agreement on how exactly they would prank them.

It should be noted that Naruto was hardly the only prankster living in Uzushio twenty years ago. In fact numerous children around his age acted in such a manner. Some people blamed the Uzumaki influence as roughly half the children who acted in such a manner were indeed Uzumaki. But that could also be due to the fact that the Uzumaki clan made up about forty percent of the villages population.

While the youngsters acted in this manner of uncouth youthful activity, most of the adults had long since grown out of their earlier habits. Instead they now spent their incredibly enlightened maturity attempting to stop the youth of the village from repeating their own actions. After all the best prankster catchers were former pranksters.

However, there were not nearly as many former pranksters living in Konoha. In fact the number was in the single digits with only one former prankster actually caring to stop the next generation which was also in the low digits.

Basically, Uzushio had a larger history of pranksters than Konoha and this left a sense of pride in each generation that they were getting better than the last one. Learning new tricks and better escape routes. Naturally, part of this pride was instilled in Naruto, but in this new place he came face to face with "Konoha's Prankster Queen" who really did not have any real competition in maintaining her title.

Now, that these two forces meet, things certainly became interesting.

"I'm telling you, we should just paint every shop window and sign so that they all look the same! Then no one would know what shop to go to and everyone will be running around like chickens with their heads cut off!" Maniacal cackling quickly followed this statement. Three guesses who said that and the first two don't count.

"But that's too risky! If we do that, we'll practically be painting targets on our backs! We need to be professional about this and not let them know what we're doing. When the stores close, we should switch the merchandise so that people go to a store to get clothes, but only find soup!" Fiendish cackling followed this idea.

"Bah, then we'd have to break into the stores, we want to have fun, not break the law." This was said ignoring the fact that painting the stores would be vandalism. "But if we're not going to paint the stores and we're not going to break into them. Maybe we should get more imaginative?" Came the suggestion.

"Like putting transparent tape in every doorway." Was one idea. "That way, when some tries to walk in, WHAM!"

"That's actually not a bad idea, but I have another one. It'll be a bit soggy though." The newest suggestion started.

"Why is it going to be soggy?" The obvious question was raised.

"Well not really for us, but for everyone else. Did you know that on this street in particular there's a built in sprinkler system in case of fires?" The rhetorical question came because obviously the companion would have no knowledge of this fact. "I'm not sure why, I think it was for back when there were only stalls in the Market area. That way if a fire broke out, it would be dealt with fairly quickly. Or at least I think that's why, it could be for a completely different reason that has to do with the Nidaime Hokage being paranoid about the Uchiha clan."

After a few moments of silence the answer came. "That was oddly specific."

"Maybe but that's the thing with paranoid people." Another pause. "I think. Do you know any paranoid people Oji-san?"

"I thought you weren't going to call me that anymore." A whining response answered.

"I agreed to nothing!" The shout of denial echoed on the empty street but aside from causing a few night patrols to look in their direction oddly, nothing happened.

"Okay so we have the what planned out, but what about the how?" Was the question of the hour now.

"Hmm, that's actually going to be a bit more difficult." The thoughtful answer came quickly. "Do you think jutsu smoke would set them off?"

"Maybe, but should we really just risk it? If it doesn't work then that would ruin the prank." The forewarning was made. This brought about another of "deep" thought about what else could be done.

"How about we don't have the sprinklers go off while everyone is down there?" The redder of the pair suggested. "In fact what if we don't even have the sprinklers go off?"

"Do we still get to pour water on people?" Was the obvious question.

"Not sure if it's still pouring, but you said you wanted it to be soggy didn't you?" A sneaky grin spread across two pairs of features.

"I'm listening."

Let the heavens tremble and the people weep indeed.

* * *

 _The Next Morning…_

When dawn broke the next day and store or stall owners went to work at their places of business in the Market District, or in the case of some citizens simply getting an early start to their shopping day, they would find a rather waterlogged area. This was due to the fact the sprinklers had been loosened to the point of allowing water to spill out like a hose, and concreted by the fact that the storm drains on the street had been blocked with a combination of wood, mud and stone.

This event left many people scratching their heads at the sheer oddness and audacity of the situation. While missions were prepared to combat the situation before the flooding spread to other parts of the village, a certain Chunin went to the one he (correctly) identified as the source of the mayhem.

"Kamaboko!" A voice called over the rapid banging of the door. Naruto rubbed his eye blearily and looked at the door of the apartment. "Open up!"

"Shit." Kama muttered and quickly ducked under the table, completely ignoring Naruto's muttered "language" (force of habit drilled into him by the only Uzumaki who didn't frequently swear, his mother). "Hide me, tell him I'm not here."

"Tell who?" Naruto asked but his blond relative said nothing and just remained under the table, likely pretending to not exist.

"I know you're in there! And I know it was you!" The banging on the door got gradually louder.

"I'm not here! Tell him I'm not here!" Kama called from underneath the table, loudly enough to make her point clear, but quietly enough so that whoever was knocking on the door would not be able to hear her.

Naruto grumbled and walked over to the door of the apartment, still wearing his only remaining set of Pajamas. They were quite comfortable and covered in little white swirls. While they were more rambunctious than most Shinobi clans, the Uzumaki certainly had their own pride, and if that pride was displayed by putting little whirlpools on children's pajamas, then so be it.

So it was, that in his slightly sleep deprived state he opened the door and was greeted by a scarred man wearing a chunin vest with his hair in a pony tail. He also had a

A look of surprised crossed the man's features before he scowled and looked judgmentally down on Naruto.

"Kamaboko, drop the henge, I know it's you." The man said sternly.

"Kama's not here right now." Naruto recited, "Maybe you should look for her in the market."

"Ha ha, very funny Kamaboko, now drop then henge and come with me, we're going to see the hokage."

"I'm not Kama and I'm not wearing a henge." Naruto glared at the man.

The man sighed in exasperation and then proceeded to bop Naruto on the head, not too hard mind you, but enough that had he indeed been wearing a henge, it would have been dissipated.

Naruto, of course, was rather offended. "Hey! What's the big deal!"

Whatever the chunin had been expecting that had not been it. In fact he probably would have been even more confused if not for the giggle that came from the kitchen. So he (quite rudely) moved past Naruto and into the kitchen where Kama was currently hiding under the table.

"Kamaboko, I know you're under there, now get out here!" The chunin told the table, still set with ramen.

The girl, still barely holding in chuckles, crawled out from under the table. She looked at the ninja and then seemed to lose control and burst out laughing.

"You thought that he was me!" Kama laughed.

"Well can you particular blame me?" The chunin asked with a vein beginning to pop out of his forehead. "Before I take you to the Hokage, would you mind telling me who he is?"

"Hey, I'm standing right here, 'ttebayo." Naruto pointed out indignantly.

"I'll get to you in a minute, and if you were an accessory, you'll be coming with me too." The chunin told Naruto before turning back to his… niece. That was still incredibly weird to think about really. In fact perhaps he just avoid thinking about anything on that topic other than the fact they were related.

"What's an accessory?" Was the muttered question that the chunin important enough to answer.

"Someone who helped commit a crime." The scarred man answered, his voice still tinged with annoyance.

"But Iruka-sensei, we made sure not to do anything illegal!"

"Really?" The man, apparently named Iruka, questioned. A very skeptical look on his face. "Just to be clear, you're telling me that you managed to turn the entire market area of the village into a canal system, without doing anything illegal?"

"You're the one who said it." Naruto grumbled while Kama had very different thoughts.

"Wait a second, why are you even here? The Academy doesn't start again for a week! I am free of you and your rules!" The girl pointed out in defiance.

"I'm here, because no one has put out the warrant for your arrest yet, so I figured we should get this sorted before the Academy starts, because I don't want you dragged out of class in order to be thrown into prison, it will be a huge distraction." Iruka explained to her.

Kama, being the mature and well adjusted eleven year old that she was, stuck her tongue out at him.

"That's what I thought, now before we head to the Hokage's Office so he can deal with you, who the heck is he!?" Iruka's attention returned focus to learning who Naruto was.

"That's just Oji-san." Kama brushed Iruka off, then seemed to think about it. "Or maybe I should call him Oji-kun? Cause he's so short, ya know?"

"I'll get taller!" Naruto said defensively. "And I thought I told you to stop calling me that!"

"Did you?" Kama put on a face that was the picture of innocence. "I don't remember."

Naruto made the obvious facepalm while poor Iruka just seemed completely lost.

"Kama," Iruka started, forgetting for the moment he was supposed to be angry with her, "since when did you have a very short and young looking uncle."

"I'm not short and I am young!" Naruto was getting a bit tired of explaining himself to this man, whom he barely knew. He made this known to the chunin. "Anyway who are you?"

"That's Iruka-sensei, he's strict and he teaches at the academy." Kama said before the scarred chunin had a chance to answer for himself.

"I also take you out for ramen on the off chance you actually behave properly." Iruka told her with narrowed eyes. Kama just whistled, or tried to anyway.

Iruka just sighed. "You know what I'm sure that Hokage-sama will explain all of this to me. "For now, come on both of you."

"You still have no proof." Naruto pointed out.

Iruka just sighed in a tired way before changing his strategy. "Look it's either come with me right now. Or wait for some very unhappy Chunin or Anbu to come get you after they've finished unclogging to drains that you plugged up."

"But maybe we should go with you to see if we can help find the real culprits in any way." Naruto changed his tune rather quickly.

"You do realize you're not fooling anyone?" Kama asked him.

"Just have to fool myself, Kama." Naruto told her out of the corner of his mouth as they followed Iruka.

* * *

 **Once again I prove I suck at writing anything related to fluff.**

 **But things are moving along so I can get the real plot started in the next couple of chapters. Side note, barring the first part of chapter one, this story has taken place over the span of about a week. Compared to my other Naruto stories that is a fairly short amount of time.**

 **As for not posting anything last week, I could not make myself write. I'm sorry for that but I was a bit stressed at the time.**

 **Not much else to say, so let's do the reviews.**

 **LordGhostStriker: Yeah, that line.**

 **PinkiePieParty222: I'm glad to hear you enjoy it so much!**

 **Lovelydragonfly : Hmm, I don't want to reveal much because it'll spoil some future plot points but I will say it's troublesome.**

 **Moonacre BunBun : Thank you.**

 **Fencer22: More sealing in the next chapter but I had fun coming up with a few prank ideas in this chapter.**

 **That's all for now folks. Let's see if I can finally get my oneshot/drabble series posted next week. Until then, bye!**

 **~FriTik**

 **R &R**


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